BIS have today published a flyer and FAQ sheet about the new fees system. But it’s too little, too late. Their failure to communicate adequately through the policy quagmire they have created will have lasting repercussions.
The leaflet itself looks more like an NHS health warning about a new bug going around and coupled with its inconsistent tone and wordy design, it is instantly off-putting. Worse still, instead of crafting a positive message about the new funding system, which you think they would clamour to do, it opens with the negative; “You might have heard reports of changes English universities and colleges will make in 2012. Don’t be put off.”
The title, ‘Thinking of going to uni in 2012? Facts on financial support for full-time students’ falls in to the classic marketing-by-committee trap. Someone around the table insists that we have to use to the word ‘uni’ to appeal to the target demographic. Someone else insists that the title has to factually represent the content. We all end up with this wordy mess.
The FAQ sheet might prove more useful for careers and guidance counsellors and teachers as it is crucial that they understand the system before they advise people about their higher education choices. But at 18 pages, it is far too long and technical a document to be useful for those that need it most.
This is the latest in a wider communications failure by Willetts and Cable who have made such a hash of their HE policy that it often seems as if they haven’t understood their own position well enough to explain it to others. That’s great for keeping policy wonks in gainful employment, but a disaster for people that might be deterred from higher education, not because of the actual terms of the new funding system, but their perceptions about them.
There have been whispers of a bigger and better PR campaign in the works, but judging by their current efforts, the Government are more likely to put people off higher education. Someone else is going to need to step in, hold their nose and sell this mess.
I don’t understand what the problem with this leaflet is.
The problem with the system is that the govt haven’t been able to get their point across this leaflet does for the first time just that.
The line in your artical about ‘marketing-by committee’ is the cheapest of cheap shots, that ironicley is only understood by life long academics and not the young people this leaflet is intended for.