Beyond Robbins
Jo Grimond
The University Grants Committee in its 1 circular on the 'Development of a strategy for higher education into the 1990s' asked if there is an essential difference in function between universities and other in- stitutions of higher education. Yes, indeed there is an essential difference, though most of the replies which I have seen from universities fail to emphasise it.
One distinctive feature of a university, as its name implies, is that it studies and teaches a wide range of subjects. Without making exaggerated claims, British univer- sities and some polytechnics can do this well. If they did not, we should find their international reputation lower and fewer foreign students anxious to come to them. At present three of the British operations which over the post-war period have been most successful (or to put it with humility least unsuccessful) have been the Health Service, the universities and agriculture. They are now all in trouble: not, I suggest, because of their failure. Doctors, dons and farmers seem to me good at their jobs. Nor because of public outcry: there are plenty of patients, pupils and food. But because they are said to be too expensive. Their expense is partly due to over-administration and rigidities and regulations enforced by governments.
But this distinctive feature of universities is not the only or the most important of their characteristics. Certainly they should research and teach. But these functions they share with other institutions. Their justification for pursuing the universality of knowledge is twofold. They believe that all knowledge is interconnected and that it is valuable to have institutions which recognise this. Many scientific developments are now 'trans-discipline'. Secondly, they teach, or ought to teach, judgment, so that they can turn out men and women capable of preserving what is good in the world, improving what is bad and making good use of the resources available. To do this men and women must first improve their own minds. The univer- sity should set out to stretch minds. While schools insist on learning, universities should encourage questioning. While schools teach 'how', universities must ask 'why'. While schools teach accepted usages, universities should ask what you mean by these usages. Thus perseverance, inquisitiveness and logical examination are encouraged. At the same time the university expands the subject matter set before the mind. It opens up history, art, the possibilities of science, philosophy, all that is embraced by civilisation. It is a meeting place for people of different backgrounds, studying different subjects. It offers con- tacts with good minds from different disciplines. A glance at the notice boards in any university will show the wide bill of fare, official and unofficial, which it offers. As a result of a university education graduates should be able to make better use of their minds and better judgments.
This may all be very obvious but it is worth repeating, for in the debate about the future of the universities and further education its corollaries seem often to be ig- nored. Ignored by the lecturers and students who are often as easily carried away by current crazes as girls are by the reigning fashion in clothes. Ignored by the Government which seems too impressed by the fall in the number of school leavers and 'is anxious to see a shift towards technological, scientific and engineering courses', so the UGC tells us. It may well be that we need to pay a great deal of attention to such courses but some might well be given in specialist institutions — the grandes ecoles have a high reputation, the Cavendish laboratory could have proved a great centre for research even if removed from Cambridge. Meanwhile the essential argument for universities would remain unaffected.
Most important, this heart of university education is in danger of being ignored in the discussion being carried on between the UGC and its clients. This discussion is get- ting lost in detailed examination of trends, student intakes, planning for the next cen- tury etc. It is just the kind of exercise belov- ed by bureaucrats, which dons with any pretensions to judgment should know is usually futile.
I used to think that in the aftermath of the Robbins report we had founded too many universities. I now think that this was a fault on the right side. Even if, which is not certain, there may be a fall in the numbers of boys and girls who might be ex- pected to come up to the present university standards, and insufficient teachers of the highest calibre to teach them, some slightly
'Next week's strike is cancelled due to the half-term holiday.'
inferior branch of proper university edilea: tion for a larger number of pupils would "° more good than harm. The rich neve',. thought that university education should be confined to the clever. For a number 0t reasons, among which is the welcome fae that not only the 'clever' will run the coun- try, I agree with them. The schools of Greats at Oxford, the Mod Tripos at Cambridge and the Humanities at the Scottish universities were aimed at improving the mind and produc- ing students capable of shaping public at fairs. When their root subjects no longer at- tracted sufficient attention attempts were, made to achieve their aims by different methods such as Modern Greats at Oxf°rdi and the general course at Keele. These have now to some extent fallen into disfavour. But I think that the reasoning behind them was sound — if we are to have universities on the current model at all. The alternative, as I have said, is to set up specialist institti: tions supplemented perhaps by centres f0' schoiars of supreme eminence on the Ill suggested by Mark Pattison, and a series ° sixth-form colleges. Take the new technologies, as they are called. I rather suspect that they will require. a fairly small number of scientists, no doub' of the highest calibre. These might well be trained in a small number of specialised in- stitutions. The rewards of those who °e- cupy the main jobs in the new technologies' and even more so the rewards of those who own the capital employed by them, will be immense. Look at Reuters. But what of the rest of us? Are we to be content with?, society dominated by the state, by t''' senior members of certain bureaucracies and by a handful of tycoons while the bulic of the population lives propertyless and at a much lower level? Again there scents a danger that the new technologies TOY become ingrown, producing a constant stream of expensive gadgets to be bought by large firms or bureaucracies but of little help to individual people — especially 11 poor. These to my mind are more serioUs problems than keeping up in the technological race itself. My generation, and perhaps our successors, have nc/et known enough about the possibilities 0' new technology, of nuclear physics or com- puters. The fault of Modern Greats was not so much its tendency to skate on the surface of several subjects but its blindness towards science. But the teaching of science will not by itself guarantee a satisfactory country. It used to be fashionable to compare favourably the industrial and scientific bent of the German universities before the first world war with our own. That did not pre- vent the German ruling class from precipitating the most disastrous war in history.
What makes it particularly important to stress this essential task of the university is that at present no other institutions are tackling it. We might give it to sixth-form colleges or even sixth forms, but we have not done so. Meanwhile the management of the country is deteriorating: far and away
the most urgent job is to improve the way we run our affairs. No one but ourselves benefit do this. We shall eventually get the oenefit of research carried on in other coun- tries. We can even at a pinch import scien- tists and technicians as we have doctors. ,au,t we cannot import voters. Unfortunate- ly n is far from clear that the universities are succeeding in this task. The behaviour of some students in howling and rioting when displeased, and the illuminating incident at St Hugh's College, Oxford, when it took a 12-Year-old girl uncontaminated by univer- sity learning to point out to the amazed students that Andropov was a torturer, hardly justify the oft-repeated claim of the universities to be in all things centres of ex- cellence. I support the Robbins dictum, 'Courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so.' But I support it on my terms, so to sPeak, those terms being that it refers to the sort of education I have described, what is often called a liberal education. On those terms the potential is enormous but the ex- Dense need not be unbearable. In most °bituaries of Robbins is stated or inferred thankwas shocked by the present 'cuts'. I hink We must take care here. In the few words I have exchanged with him lately he seemed to be nervous that the famous dic- tum of his report was being interpreted as meaning that we must provide further education, paid for by the taxpayer, for any tudent in any subject he or she liked to de- mand. I doubt if he was as far out of sym- dthY with Sir Keith Joseph as some pun- like to suggest. He, as an economist, saw very clearly the difficulty of finance. How then is further education to be financed? I sympathise with Sir Keith s view that it should if possible be less depen- dent on the Government and local authorities. By all means let industry help and encourage universities and technical colleges to sell their products. But not at the expense of the non-technical subjects. University year is too short. It was fixed to suit the harvest. The number of staff, in- cluding non-academic staff, compared to students could be reduced. Rather than deny Y them any university course, let the universities follow the example of the in- dependent university and offer two-year courses (the Leverhulme Foundation has, I believe, suggested some such development tYPIcally called 'a two-year module'). A Year between school and university might winnow out some of those who take up Places which they find they do not ap- preciate. The amount of post-graduate research in the arts and social sciences could be reduced. The UGC draws a distinction la ,uetween 'scholarship' and 'research'. The tter, it says, means 'advancing what is known'. Come, come. Often it means doing ‘1:11r,11 a grant what should be treated is in ,O°by. If there is any 'advance' it is ih ,L"n°wIedge' which is trivial. Lastly there is le student loan — so horrifying to students. Certainly loans should be in- troduced for post-graduates. So let the universities expand at doing their essential job, not only genuine research but the provision of a counter- blast to bureaucracy on behalf of the in- dividual and the inculcation of a wider outlook than the mere getting of what you can for your profession. Let those polytechnics which already are virtually universities be treated as such or combined with neighbouring universities. Others should become centres for one subject which they could pursue to the point of ex- cellence. The art schools on their own were a great success. Their example might well be followed, though not universally. Some universities might drop some subjects but not to the point at which they cease to be worthy of their name. Finally, outside a totalitarian state (which would be the death of universities anyway) it is not possible to dictate to students what they study. The UGC writes that in a number of subjects, notably medicine, dentistry, veterinary science and education, the number of students depends on the Government's policies on manpower requirements. I hope not. Some medical training may be as good for the mind as Latin. I cannot see any great virtue in the current pressure for girls to be engineers rather than vets. Nor is there any need to make your living in the discipline you have studied. Many eminent university administrators were trained as doctors, so were politicians like Walter Elliot, while Mrs Thatcher was a student of science.
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