DAVID BLUNKETT: Striking academics, record dropout rates and good luck finding somewhere to live… our university crisis fills me with despair
In the late 1960s, when I was at university, students’ tuition fees were paid by the Government. Generous grants — which we did not have to repay — were awarded for living expenses.
I cannot recall a single strike by my lecturers during the three years I spent at Sheffield University; nor were my studies disrupted by anything as exotic as a pandemic.
And so I observe what is going on today with despair. Striking lecturers, unmarked exams, an accommodation crisis and a record-breaking dropout rate have combined to create a perfect storm of problems for the tertiary education sector.
Coming on top of the disruption caused by the pandemic and an explosion in the numbers of foreign students, life has rarely, if ever, been more problematic for our home-grown undergraduates.
Let’s start with the basics. Anyone embarking on a three or four-year degree — and paying handsomely for the privilege — would like to think that the one guaranteed thing would be a structured programme of learning.
I cannot recall a single strike by my lecturers during the three years I spent at Sheffield University (pictured)
But for the cohort graduating this summer, things went awry very early on. With the advent of Covid, they were put on a ‘blended learning’ regime, under which they were taught via a combination of online tuition and spasmodic traditional face-to-face lectures and tutorials.
They’d barely had time to adjust to this new reality when their lecturers went on strike. Weeks of lectures and tutorials in the past two academic years were lost to industrial action by members of the University and College Union (UCU).
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These strikes served only to make a bad situation considerably worse; and, frankly, as a lifelong trade unionist and former education secretary, I have been appalled by the UCU’s behaviour.
Over the past four years, the amount raised by universities in fees from domestic students has fallen in real terms by 18 per cent — which means that most institutions are not remotely in a position to meet the UCU’s pay demands.
Any trade unionist worth their salt knows that successful negotiations always involve compromise — but the UCU appears incapable of grasping this fundamental concept.
It is the action taken by the union at the end of this academic year, however, that I find almost beyond belief: it called on tutors to refuse to mark examination papers, including crucial dissertations by students in their final year.
Thank goodness not all university staff, including many members of the UCU, went along with this appalling act of sabotage, which was aimed squarely at the life chances of the students involved.
Nevertheless, as a result, many final-year students attended ‘graduation’ ceremonies where they were handed anodyne letters by their Vice Chancellors rather than degree certificates.
To go into the new academic year with a plan to continue this self-destructive action, which only hurts those they should care about, is both bizarre and unacceptable.
Over the past four years, the amount raised by universities in fees from domestic students has fallen in real terms by 18 per cent [File image]
But there is a wider issue here. Put simply, the UCU is in danger of impoverishing the very bodies it hopes will award its members a pay rise.
Already, more than 140,000 students have joined a legal action called the Student Group Claim in a bid to obtain compensation from their universities for disruption to their education caused by strikes and the pandemic.
It is also clear that if young people come to the conclusion that their very expensive university course will be marred by strike action and marking boycotts, some of them will — understandably — look for an alternative career path. Fewer students will mean fewer lecturers needed to teach them.
And there are other disincentives for these young people. A shortage of suitably priced accommodation has reached a crisis point in many university cities and towns.
This phenomenon stems, in part, from the universities’ failure to plan sufficiently far ahead for the steep rise in the number of domestic students caused by the demographic bulge in 18-year-olds.
This, in turn, has been exacerbated by a post-Covid boom in demand for places from overseas students. Strikingly, a quarter of places at Russell Group universities in England went to international students last year — a rise from 16 per cent, on average, between 2012 and 2017, according to the dataHE consultancy.
At two universities, University College London and the LSE, international students now make up more than half of undergraduate admissions.
These two factors have led to steep rises in the price of rooms in halls of residence. In response, dodgy landlords in the private sector have been jacking up rents or offering only sub-standard accommodation at prices the average student can actually afford.
The housing problem has become so acute that some students at Bristol University are being forced to live as far away as Wales, while one student going into his second year at Nottingham University is having such difficulty finding suitable accommodation that he is contemplating taking a gap year. He cannot be the only undergraduate in this invidious position.
Combine this catalogue of misery with the effects of the cost of living crisis and it’s no surprise to hear that the university dropout rate stands at a record level. No fewer than 32,600 students withdrew from their degree courses in the last academic year — 9 per cent more than the previous year.
Put simply, the UCU is in danger of impoverishing the very bodies it hopes will award its members a pay rise [File image]
This is bad news for their universities, as the places they leave open in the second and third years of their courses cannot easily be filled.
I have stated the problem, then. And that, in turn, raises a stark question: are too many people going to university?
I will always be proud of my part in expanding the university sector in this country while in government and making more places available to people from disadvantaged backgrounds. But it is now generally accepted that good careers advice is essential in helping young people to make the most appropriate choices.
By going straight from school into the world of work, whether as an apprentice or via technical or vocational training, many young people would benefit from not saddling themselves with onerous student-loan repayments.
Indeed, such a route can still lead to a degree. Some highly rated institutions, such as the Universities of Sheffield and Warwick, offer advanced apprenticeships leading to just such a qualification.
In this way, they would also miss out on the internecine warfare between university staff and management that promises to afflict our campuses for some time to come.
Yet given the rapid changes afoot in the way teaching is conducted, including the advent of sophisticated technology such as AI, it would surely be wise for anyone contemplating a vote for continuing industrial action in the university sector to think twice before doing so.
Let me be clear: while, those staff on temporary contracts and in the lowest grades have had real cause to demand improvement in their conditions of employment, they are also the most likely to lose out in any restructuring or job losses that result from industrial action.
Let us hope that wiser heads prevail, and a sensible compromise can be reached in the interests of both the reputation of our world-class higher education sector and our students, whose experience of university life is increasingly being marred by the ineptitude of those who hold such sway over their futures.
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