CITY AND SUBURBAN
No port in a storm as ministers sink the National Dons Labour Board
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
Lights burn late in Otium House, as the leaders of a proud community ponder the threat hanging over the system which provides them not only with their living but also with their way of life. The challenge comes from the Government, which, with- out consultation or warning, has brought in a bill to abolish the National Dons Labour Scheme and wind up the Board which enforces it. Ministers and dons have been set on a collision course, and the universi- ties will never be the same again. First reactions were incredulous. The Regius Professors of Divinity and Law called the Proposal a diabolical liberty. Dons came to realise that it threatened not only their traditional practices — quaint old Oxford customs, as they are called — but their fundamental right to jobs for life and a 24-week year. The board and scheme in their present form derive from an agreement reached by Wat Tyler and Sir Toby de Aldington, as part of the terms for buying off the Peasants' Revolt. The dons, though, trace them back to King Alfred, King Ethelred, and the other putative founders whose millenaries now offer excuses for fund raising (`the Danegeld Appeal'). Thus the Working year still divides into three terms because no more than eight weeks each. This is °ccause in winter, in the founders' time, the young men might take weeks to travel to and from the university on such roads as there were, while in summer they would be required to stay at home on the manor and help with the harvest.
Jobs for life, or 'tenure', as the arrange- ment is called, may be of mediaeval origin, reflecting the character of the first colleges as quasi-monastic institutions, though the strict requirements are no longer in force. To these survivals of history ministers are now taking their bulldozers. They point out that at Buckingham, which is outside the scheme, a course which takes other universities three years can be completed in two — implying that, but for the scheme, dons could raise their productivity by 50 per cent. The Regius Professor of Economics dismisses this argument as naive. Tenure, ministers argue, protects Inefficiency — and, worse, denies opportu- nities to the young and able. .. Where tenure is in force but funding is limited, the academic population ages, and _new aspirants for jobs cannot find them. Like other unionists, the dons preserve employment inside their ranks and per- petuate unemployment outside them. The professor dismisses this argument, too funding, he says, should be unlimited, or at any rate should be determined by the dons, who are best qualified to do so. Ministers for their part are impatient with the con- sequences of funding the scheme. They pay, on a graduated scale, subventions to dons who give lectures. The purpose of the lectures is to obtain the subventions. No one is required to attend them, nor does attendance (if any) affect the remuneration of the don. Lectures are another historic custom which the Board preserves, and they can enable dons to combine their public subventions with the stipends of their College fellowships. A tutorial fellow is required to listen to his pupils as they read out essays, normally one per pupil per week.
Even the Court of Appeal has adopted a more modern procedure than this. Advo- cates send in their arguments in writing, giving the judges the chance to consider them and making more efficient use of the time of the court — but here is yet another survival dear to the National Dons Labour Board's antiquarian heart. Its regime gives dons free time in which they can supple- ment their income by such well-established means as broadcasting, book-reviewing economic forecasting, giving little talks on cruise-liners or driving minicabs. They can expect access to grants and air-tickets assisting them to attend conferences (do Palazzo dei Congressi, Firenze), to pursue their research (do Villa I Tatti, Firenze) or to spend a sabbatical year sorting out the Guelphs from the Ghibellines. (No mail to be forwarded — put the brown envelopes in the bin, Bert.) The scheme underwrites all these arrangements, and in effect pre- serves them, by providing that they cannot be changed without the dons' agreement, to which all questions of recruiting and discipline are also subject.
On the scheme's merits, opinions differ. The dons argue, first, that our universities are the envy of the world, and then that anyone who is any good will not stay there a moment longer than it takes him to procure an offer from America — though the Regius Professor of Logic has been rash enough to observe that the two propositions contradict each other. They complain of posts unfilled and subjects neglected for want of money.
Ministers wonder whether the university still needs quite so many chairs of divinity, and whether the B.Litt and D.Phil indus- tries, now working their way through the demography of Runcorn or Cyril Connol- ly's collected IOUs, may some day run short of raw material. Dons retort that such tests are utilitarian and Benthamist when they ought to be serendipitous. It is absurd (they say) to suppose that they know what they are doing, to the point of knowing whether it will be any good, but at the same time they are the best judges of their own business, and should therefore be left to get on with it.
These disagreements have become acute. The dons, faced with piles of ex- amination papers, took what they describe as academic inaction. They did not foresee the Government's riposte. Ministers had inherited the board and the scheme, had consistently denied any plans to change them, and were generally thought to have enough on their hands without choosing to take on the dons. Now the question at Otium House is whether to call a national dons' strike. The militants have no doubt, but the moderates wonder whose sympathy they would have, and what it would take to make a strike effective. With one eye on the union funds and another on the Indust- rial Relations Acts, they suspect that the Government would be willing to sit the strike out while the lawyers found a way to sequester the money.
The dons might even find their most cogent argument turned against them. Their work, they argue, is essential to the national survival in a competitive world. France, Germany, Japan, the US — all our competitor countries — have a far higher proportion of graduates than we do. Quite so, ministers will answer, but is that because they have more productive dons? No fudging this one over port and sand- wiches at No. 10. There will be struggles, and shock, and nostalgia, but the National Dons Labour Board and the quaint old customs look doomed.
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