Government must recognise the human cost to the crisis facing universities

Roger Weston · 1 Jun 2020

“As well as not acting out in mere self-interest, our case is not borne out of a desire to defend or preserve the status quo.”

Then someone has to fail – otherwise you are arguing to preserve the status quo – part of the reason UK HE is so charmingly backwards in so many ways is because nobody feels like anything is seriously ever going to change.

Michael Picken · 1 Jun 2020

Well stated article.

“government” – singular and obviously referring to the UK government of Boris Johnson, though of course HE is a devolved matter with the involvement of four governments.

One also has to assume that in declaring a unilateral “cap” on English domiciled students wanting to study in the other three nations, announcing it publicly without even notifying the devolved administrations let alone consult them, that this Johnson government is also declaring war on the devolution of HE, by protecting English HE at the expense of the other nations’ system. Goodness knows how they intend to police this (ie penalise institutions or students?). The fact that there was no new money in the recent “package” for England also means, seemingly quite deliberately, that there are no “Barnett consequentials” to hand on from the UK Treasury to the other three administrations – punishment for stepping out of line? The statements about the current UCAS cycle and particularly so-called “unconditional” offers by the Office for Students (England), also indicates that really the Johnson government wants to “nationalise” UCAS and use it as an instrument of UK (English) Government HE policy, rather than for the benefit of all the UK institutions and all the UK and international applicants it was set up to service.

This is a sad period for HE and it needs calling out by those sitting in UUK and heading institutions.

simon kaufman · 3 Jun 2020

Intrigued by your comments about the position of UCAS; not at all clear as to where the balance now lies between having put itself in this position as a matter of conscious strategic policy or conversely has found itself in a position where it has become or is in the process step-by-step of becoming a servant or ‘instrument’ of government policy.

On the one hand there are clear benefits to UCAS from the incorporation of compliance with UCAS business rules (aka UCAS Applications Recruitment Policy) into the ‘fair admissions’ principles underpinning the new condition of registration since this has the capacity both to address ‘by-passing’ of the scheme and which in the longer term will enhance the authoritativeness of UCAS data in overviews of sector access and participation both domestically and internationally.

The ‘downside’ as Michael has highlighted above lies in becoming an ‘instrument’ of government policy where HE is a devolved matter and where the four nations of the UK have differing policy priorities. Placing itself as a servant of DfE/OfS policy – as for example over the ministerial embargo on specific forms of offer-making between 23 March and early May – where this ‘writ’ only applies to England has – at least – the potential to compromise the standing of the organisation as an independent player in the agency mix supporting the UK sector.

Ever since HE became a devolved matter there has always been something of a tension between the position of UCAS as a UK wide application service requiring cognisance equally to be taken of evolving HE policy as it applies to applicants and institutions in Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland and perceptions of primacy being accorded to the interests of applicants and institutions in England which make up the predominant mass of its customer base.

Perhaps this tension is simply manifesting itself more overtly than previously under the particular circumstances for the sector the covid-19 crisis has given rise to. Certainly there are real issues for the governance structure of UCAS here which require further scrutiny for its participating institutions given the organisation’s historic origins as a creation of its member institutions in the sector to perform a clearly circumscribed and articulated set of business purposes in the interests of the UK sector (rather than in furtherance of the policy interest of the government of the day at any point in time)

Matthew Del Nevo · 4 Jun 2020

The universities have been robbing overseas students blind. This is there come-uppance. Let them sink. The good ones will survive.