SOCIETY TODAY

Education

Threat to university independence

Rhodes Boyson, MP

Socialism and liberty are never bedfellows and the real difference between left and right in this country is that the left believes in a directed beehive society and the right believes in a free society with maximum persona liberty.

Michael Foot's closed shop is a step to a new feudalism and now we see arising the threat to university freedom. For years government subventions to universities increased until they became almost totally dependent upon the state begging bowl. Grants were paid to students and they were encouraged to join the collective society by compulsory membership of the National Union of Students. Yet we were assured by aged Liberal gentlemen and the University Grants Committee that universities would remain totally free and they and their students would decide what was studied.

In May, however, Lord Crowther-Hunt, Minister responsible for higher education in the Labour Government, warned us of the coming reality. "Relevance must be our guiding principle", he said and then indicated that the subjects studied should be related to the future labour demand. Last week he went further and said, "We need to estimate our likely future needs for different broad categories; of trained manpower." H-e; instanced how we already planned' for the number of teachers and doctors we wanted without realising that these were classic illustrations of how all state planning is bound to fail. We have been short of doctors ever since the second world war and until we suddenly discovered a surplus this year we have also been continually short of teachers.

Nevertheless the words of Lord Crowther-Hunt must be heeded. Mass university education is a servant of the state not of objective knowledge and he who pays the piper will eventually call the tune. Government financing of education will mean government universities. Sweden has been accepting students in universities for years only if their subjects were relevant to the job market.

There is no doubt that the universities are alarmed by this new threat to freedom and it is good that Mr Norman St John-Stevas has quickly moved to their defence. Dr. R. B. Hunter, ViceChancellor of Birmingham University, pleaded this month for a few 'centres of excellence' and accepted, like Mr Jo Grimond, that some universities might have to be closed. "The [other] policy of spreading the butter thinly will mean disaster for all," Dr Hunter added and finally declared, "This is elitism against the current of vote-catching egalitarianism."

There is need for a new Commission on higher education particularly on the universities. They are losing confidence. Student applications are declining in relation to the number of places. In 1974 there were 6,289 vacancies, 5,000 of them in science and technology. In September 1974 the Universities Central Clearing Association advertised vacancies in British universities in fifteen subjects from Biology to French. Lower 'A' level gradings will now win university entry and Dr Geoffrey Templeman, the Chairman of UCCA and the Vice-Chancellor of Kent University, has written that there is "a willingness to accept a somewhat lower level of attainment in GCE Advanced subjects for some courses." Some 86 per cent of students with two 'A' levels who apply for university entry now gain places.

There is now a tendency to fill vacant places with foreign students at huge expense to the British taxpayer since the fees are small and after three years presence in Britain all foreign students count as naive entrants: Lord Bowden has stated that in a number of departments at the University of Manchester Institute of Seicnce and Technology a majority of postgraduate students are foreign. In chemical engineering in that Institute three-quarters of the postgraduate students are foreign. Yet each of these students, many from rich countries like the US, Canada, Europe, Japan and the Arab countries, costs the British taxpayer 0,000 a year.

There are likely to be even more vacancies in the future. By 1981 we are likely to 'have 120,000 fewer sixth formers than we have now and by 1986 the figure will show a fall of a further 35,000.

It is thus necessary to do three things to save our universities. There should be an assessment of demand and where there is a surplus, departments and, if necessary, universities must be closed., The rest of the universities must then be much more generously supported. Secondly, avenues must be explored of finding different means of finance from the state. Employers subsidising courses, loans for students, charitable appeals must all be tried.

Finally there must be a reassessment of what universities are for they are not for relevance or producing trained labour but, as Sir Eric Ashby said, their function is in

-preserving, transmitting and enriching culture", however much our barbarian egalitarian age shrinks at the words.

One final point: thank goodness 'for the Independent University. We may need it if all else fails to remind us what universities were once about.

Dr Rhodes Boyson, Conservative MP for Brent North, was formerly headmaster of Highbury Grove School