The following critical analysis of the Dearing Committee Report on Higher Education was prepared before the details of the Government's proposals were known for the implementation of the student contribution to their higher education. According to David Blunkett's statements as Secretary of State for Education and Employment, there will be three categories of payment. Some students will be charged nothing -- Lady Blackstone, the Minister for Education, has said that this will be about a third -- some will have to pay the full 25 per cent of costs (£1000 per year at 1997 prices) and some will pay something less. This 'contribution' can be paid at the time of study or as and when graduates reach a certain level of income and in instalments that will be subject to payment of a subsidised interest rate as they are deferred. It is unclear whether the contributions will be ring-fenced for higher education and whether the extra year(s) that teachers and doctors spend on training will be subject to the same contributions from students. On top of the fees, students attending residential institutions will be charged for accommodation and maintenance and the current means-tested grant system will be replaced by a loan system for those whose parents cannot meet these costs.
These proposals from their very nature imply a means test -- in the first instance presumably of the parents of students and then of graduates. The socialist objective of universality is ruptured. Differences will be obvious, particularly if the finance follows the student and not the institution. If students from poor homes begin to earn well as graduates, they will presumably, nonetheless, make no contribution, since the prospect of payment would be a strong disincentive to embarking on higher education. Students from rich homes will avoid paying interest by making their contribution early. So, perhaps these two cancel each other out. But what is inevitably regressive is that although there are three categories of non-payment, half-payment and full-payment, and the tax payer subsidises the non-payers and half-payers, there is no further transfer from rich to poor, as there is through income tax and would be through a graduate tax, rising as a proportion of income.
A number of well informed people in the universities, including Sir Stewart Sutherland, have pointed out, moreover, that, once the principle of fee payment is admitted, it will not be possible to prevent some more prestigious universities charging top-up fees, particularly if, as the Dearing Report recommends, the contribution follows the student and not the institution. David Blunkett says that he will resist this, but without some serious limitation of individual and institutional freedom, it is hard to see how this can be done. A two tier system of higher education is in any case bound to be encouraged by the ending of maintenance grants, since more of those young people from poorer families will opt for their local post-1992 university, and live at home, rather than for one of the mainly residential older universities.
The Dearing Committee was established with bi-partisan support. It had become painfully evident to all concerned that after ten years of cuts in resources while student numbers were growing the institutions of higher education faced bankruptcy. An immediate shortfall of up to £500 millions a year was anticipated, with much larger figures in prospect as capital investment which had been held back over several years had to be made good. This was particularly serious in the sciences, but affected the safety and viability of many ageing buildings. The Dearing Committee confirmed these figures and at the same time took account of the fact that the Government's current policy of capping student numbers was untenable in the future. It is this shortfall which David Blunkett is seeking to meet with his immediate provision of £150 millions.
The terms of reference of the Committee required that it
'should have regard, within the constraints of the Government's other spending priorities and affordability, to the following principles:
*there should be the maximum participation in initial higher education by young and mature students and in lifetime learning by adults, having regard to the needs of individuals, the nation and the future labour market ...'
The question then was who was to pay for this. The Tory government had capped public spending. The Labour Party was pledged to maintain that government's spending targets for two years and to curb public spending in the longer run. There were only two alternatives: the students themselves or the employers. It was established that graduates in employment earned more than non-graduates and it was assumed that employers therefore preferred graduate employees. The position of unemployed graduates was not considered, although the Warwick University study which was examined in Report no.11 included with the main Dearing Report, revealed that 3.8 per cent of graduates were unemployed in 1991. This study, moreover, projected a 9 per cent surplus supply of graduates over projected demand in the year 2001. This, as the Warwick study pointed out, was likely to reduce the earnings differential. Yet, it could hardly be denied that both the graduate employees and the employers would be beneficiaries from a widening of participation in higher education.
The task of the Dearing Committee was thus twofold -- to establish the case for wider participation in higher education in the UK and to recommend how it should be paid for. Having established the case, they concluded that the students should pay. Yet, ironically, the case is argued almost entirely in terms of the need to improve the competitiveness of British industry. The association between participation rates in higher education and levels of economic performance is simply assumed, with very little evidence except the high participation rates in certain competing economies -- USA, Japan, South Korea, France -- but not in others. The assumption would suggest that the employer should pay to get more graduate employees. But the Committee recommended otherwise.
The costs of education could not be imposed upon employers, so it was argued, because this would only add to the costs of their products and reduce their competitiveness. The case for education, not just for economic growth but for human development, was not explored. There are no references to past advocates of universal education to be available for as many years as a man or woman feels necessary for their full development, from Milton's plea for a 'complete and generous education' to Matthew Arnold's demand that it must provide for 'the common good of all'. One could hardly expect a government committee to quote Richard Hoggart or Raymond Williams, but one could hope that they might show some sign of having read them. At the very least, they could have examined their own assumptions.
Even on the most utilitarian view of the advantages of wider education, there is much evidence, reviewed in the 1997 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that human development and particularly the reduction of inequalities makes for more rapid economic growth, but that growth does not necessarily ensure development for all. An actual decline in living standards for some and increase of numbers in poverty has occurred in several countries including the UK in the last two decades, while overall economic growth has continued, the richer groups in society benefiting most. The aim of widening participation in higher education could have been seen precisely in relation to reducing inequalities. Imposing extra costs which would fall most heavily on the poorer families would then have been avoided. The aim of a more inclusive society, which receives only a passing mention in the Report, would have been put first. Instead, a narrower view of national economic advantage was accepted.
Thus it has been concluded by the New Labour Government that the current system of free education in the United Kingdom is to be ended for those wishing and able to continue their studies after they leave school. This is the meaning of the Labour Government's basic acceptance of the Dearing Committee recommendations for the future funding of Higher Education in Britain. Finance is the part of the Committee's report that has received most media attention and it is the natural conclusion to the whole report. But the report should be seen as a whole. Unfortunately this is a gargantuan task. The report in its boxed case measures 12' by 8' -- that is A4 size -- and is 4' deep, and weighs in at 5 kilos. It consists of 17 separate reports and 5 separate appendices -- that is over 2000 pages of print. It has taken me four weeks reading off and on to struggle through it, but I do not regret the effort. There is no other way of understanding both its strengths and its weaknesses.
The main value of this report lies in the fact that it is the first major report on Higher Education in Britain for more than 30 years, that is since the Robbins Report in 1963. We now have accurate figures of participation rates by age, gender, region and ethnic origin. In the years since Robbins the numbers of students has risen from just over 200,000 in 1960, more than doubling in the 1960s after Robbins and trebling since the mid-1980s to the present 1.6 million -- just over a million full time and half a million part-time.
The last government put a cap on numbers, but the report reveals that the current participation rate of 30 per cent among 18-19 year olds can be expected to rise to 45 per cent in 20 years, a rate already achieved in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The proportion of women studying is now 52 per cent of the total, double the figure recorded by Robbins. Ethnic minorities are now more than proportionally represented in higher education, comprising over 8 per cent of the total number of graduates, while their proportion of the national population is only just over 5 per cent. Students over the age of 21 now make up half the total and 30 per cent are over the age of 30. This is a total change from the days of Robbins and in part the result of the creation of the Open University which provides for about half of all part-time students.
These very positive developments have allowed the Committee to describe the subject of its report as 'Higher Education in the Learning Society' (emphasis added) and to speak throughout of 'life-long learning'. Though the claim is exaggerated and the means, as I shall argue, are inadequate, the direction of advance is wholly to be welcomed by those who have for long been committed to the development of adult education. The assumption of continued potential growth of participation in higher education is surely correct and the emphasis on means to fund such growth not at all misplaced. The Report reveals that, while public expenditure on higher education as a proportion of national income has recovered since the low point of 1989, it remains at 1.2 per cent of GDP, which is what it was in 1979. Funding per student, moreover, has fallen steadily to not much more than half what it was in 1979. Such a squeeze on resources could not go on, if numbers were to increase, While questions about access are scarcely touched upon, the Report has to be read in conjunction with the Kennedy Report on Further Education, thankfully a document of much slimmer proportions, to which I will return.
Many of the Committee's recommendations are concerned with improving and monitoring the actual delivery of higher education by the institutions involved, through the establishment of a professional Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education , through the Quality Assurance Agency and through a new General Teaching Council. How far such bodies can ensure major improvements without a considerable increase in resources available must be doubted. There are references in thirteen separate recommendations to the important role in higher education of developments in information technology, and more resources will certainly be needed if the stated aim of a PC for every student is to be achieved by the year 2005.
A great part of the strength of the Report lies in the many studies which were commissioned by the Committee and are published with the Report -- the national consultation itself which resulted in over 800 submissions, the separate report of the Scottish Committee and the report on the regions, the very welcome paper by Professor John Laver on investment in research in the humanities and arts, the consultation with employers (of which more anon), the studies of Higher Education in other countries, the very detailed inquiries into the expectations and experiences of full-time and part-time students and of academic and support staffs, and the very important study by Sir Stewart Sutherland on Teacher Education and Training. Of course, a great part of the Report is taken up by the question of funding and it cannot be said that the Committee did not engage the leading authorities -- London Economics and Cooper and Lybrands -- to take them through the labyrinthine models of alternative options for increasing the student contribution to the costs of higher education. For that is how they chose to find the money.
What any socialist is likely to regard as weaknesses in the Committee's Report derive directly from its terms of reference and its membership. Both reflect the political orientation of the government which appointed the Committee, although it is a matter for speculation whether the orientation of the New Labour government will prove to be any different. Initial signals are not encouraging for anyone looking for a radically different orientation. The terms of reference start with a warning of the 'constraints of the Government's other spending priorities and affordability' and among the general aims of 'maximum participation', diversity, high standards and effectiveness, require that
'learning should be increasingly responsive to employment needs and include the development of general skills widely valued in employment;'
This requirement is spelt out at length in Annex A to the Terms of Reference. After an initial genuflection towards the 'key role in developing the powers of the mind and in advancing understanding and learning through scholarship and research' and despite allowing that 'higher education continues to have a role in the nation's social, moral and spiritual life', every single other requirement has one message only:
'The UK must now compete in increasingly competitive international markets', 'our international competitors are aiming to improve the contribution higher education systems make to their economic performance', 'higher education has a key role in delivering national policies', 'important for all sectors of the economy', 'a national resource', 'major contributor to local, regional and national economic growth and regeneration', 'an important educational export in its own right', 'higher education increasingly delivered in the work-place and in the home through distance learning'.
Not surprisingly the Annex ends by remarking that 'the Government has legislated to enable private financial institutions to offer loans to students'. And with these terms of reference it will be no surprise either to find that out of 17 members of the Committee, five in addition to Sir Ron Dearing come from the directorate of giant companies, and 7 are University Vice-Chancellors or their equivalent, plus one Professor of Medicine, one headteacher, one trade unionist and one officer of a Students Union. By contrast, the Scottish Committee had only one industrialist in addition to the Chairman and only three Vice-Chancellors or their equivalent out of a total membership of 12. One may expect the Scottish people to be well rewarded for voting to manage and finance their own educational system.
True to its terms of reference, the Committee's vision of the 'learning society' over the next 20 years as revealed in the first chapter of its report is of an 'economically successful nation', 'at the leading edge of world practice', 'at least comparable to that provided by higher education in competitor nations'. References to a 'competitive economy', 'competitive advantage' 'competitive pressures' , the 'economic imperative' and the dangers of 'lagging behind its competitors' fill the whole section on 'The Learning Society'. Only at one point does 'learning as enhancing the quality of life' slip in and it is immediately followed by a sentence which begins with a 'But' and goes on 'looking 20 years ahead, the UK must progress further and faster in the creation of such a society to sustain a competitive economy.' Such philistinism is just occasionally moderated by a flash of understanding from an older and different ethos. Thus it is recognised that 'it is also [note the also! MBB] a hallmark of a civilised society that it pursues knowledge at the highest levels for its own sake and that it seeks knowledge for altruistic, and not only commercial ends'. Thus one of the purposes of higher education, the last to be listed by the Committee, is 'to play a major role in shaping a democratic, civilised, inclusive society'. The need to satisfy individual expression and human curiosity are also given due respect, but even these wider aims are qualified by the statement that 'there is an indivisible link between higher education's role in developing individuals and its service of the nation's wider economic need'. It is never questioned whether there might be a contradiction between the emphasis on developing competitiveness and at least one of the values which higher education is said to advocate and transmit, viz 'a responsibility to share knowledge'. With your competitors? The only references in the Report to the international community of scholarship come in relation to 'halting the brain drain', 'competition for inward investment', 'an international airport' in each region that seeks to become a 'learning region', participation in the 'world market for learning materials', 'intellectual copyright', 'companies tapping into global networks' and so on. Along with the competitive economic thrust of the Committee's approach there is constant reference to the nation's needs, the 'nation's wealth creating capacity' and the 'future health and well-being of our nation' in the Report of the National Committee. The question about Scottish nationality seems not to have been asked but the Scots were allowed their own Committee and report, which was denied to the Welsh and the Irish. It is the lack of internationalism in the Report that is most disturbing to any scholar who feels himself to be a member of an international community. The mind boggles in imagining what Erasmus would have thought, whose name is employed for the European organisation which receives competitive bids for research funding. It is not even allowed that a more civilised and international society with not only University museums, concert halls and art galleries but also sports facilities, parks and conference centres, might be an attraction to foreign visitors whether for business or tourism.
The Committee has seized upon the growing proportion of mature students in higher education to develop the concept of lifelong learning. But it is viewed in a very narrow way. Even where the Committee recognises that 'institutions [will] provide, as they have historically done, programmes in the liberal arts and respond to leisure interests', they go on to add 'but [again that 'but'! MBB] there will be an increasing opportunity and need for institutions to provide programmes that respond to specifically local social and economic needs for lifelong learning.' The emphasis even here is on 'closer articulation with local employers' and the recommendation on regional development funding is that it should 'enable higher education to be responsive to the needs of local industry and commerce'. It is not only the needs of employers that the Committee insists upon but the links with what is called the 'world of work', for which it is said: 'Above all the country must enable people, in large numbers and throughout life, to equip themselves' -- a world of work which the Report says is 'characterised by change'. The change the Committee draws attention to is
'economic change, and in particular
- increasing international economic integration;
- the changing nature of the labour market in the United Kingdom;
- the pace, nature and unpredictability of change in the nature of the UK economy.'
There is no mention of the reduction in the length of the working life of most men and women -- a fact which must have the most profound implications for the provision of higher education. When they come to list the changes in the nature of the labour market, they mention the 'increased proportion of the labour force who work part-time', but, of course, that is only one part of the change in the balance between working time and leisure time. The Committee does not indicate the great increase in leisure time in the future for all, especially for those retiring much earlier than heretofore, a development which is already affecting large numbers of men in Britain. Lifelong learning is treated throughout the Report, as is everything else, as an economic requirement to meet employers' needs for a flexible and adaptable workforce, able to learn new skills and change jobs several times over a lifetime, a development which a recent ILO Report suggests is not in fact so prevalent as has been supposed. Thus, in their advice to employers, the Committee concludes:
'Support for continuing study and development will need to develop further in the years ahead to support lifelong learning and maintain the competitiveness of the UK.'
The Committee devoted much time, including the commissioning of a whole report on 'Growth Theory and Externalities', to considering the advantages of regional coordination between institutions and special regional access arrangements and even regional funding in order to ensure a closer mesh between the requirements of industry and commerce and the output of higher education. That local access might be an important element in education for leisure, and not only for work, is barely considered.
The Committee is just rescued from a total philistinism by the inclusion of a strongly argued paper from Professor John Laver on 'The need to invest in research in the humanities and the arts' which led the Committee to recommend the establishment and funding of a 'Humanities and Arts Research Council' to complement the existing Medical, Science and Social Science Research Councils. But this is argued for by the Committee largely as a tidying up operation among the several bodies that now provide for such research. The Committee also felt able to propose 'equitable support for students of dance, drama and stage management at institutions which are not in receipt of public funds.' The obvious fact appears, however, to have escaped them, that an increasing part of people's time today is devoted to participation, albeit mainly passive, in music, drama and the arts, and that this gives employment to vast numbers in the entertainment industry. This last fact might have been expected to have been noticed, had the Committee included any single representative from the media.
Having spent the greater part of my working life helping mature students to prepare for further and higher education I am not likely to underestimate the economic advantages that derive therefrom. To take but one example, when the coal industry was suddenly and brutally closed down without preparation of alternative employment opportunities, it was obvious that the more education a redundant coal miner had, the better were his chances of finding reemployment. But further education did not guarantee a new job, and most of my students would argue that the widening of their mental horizons and the stimulation of their mental faculties were the greatest benefits that they derived from their return to studying.
As one ploughs through the Report and its 11 supporting reports and five appendices, and approaches the key question of funding to bridge the yawning gap between increasing demand for higher education and the available resources, one assumes that all the emphasis on responsiveness to employment needs and on improving UK industrial and commercial competitiveness is leading up to a proposal that employers should increase their contribution to the costs. Table 18.2 on page 284 of the Report reveals that Industry and Commerce provided in 1995-6 just 2.7 per cent of the income of higher education institutions, most of this for research. This is a total of less than £300 million out of that year's company profits of around £30,000 million, i.e. less than one percent. At the same time the contribution from public funds was over £7,000 million and from individuals £1,000 million. It must be added that the 2.7 per cent does not include the contribution of employers through direct sponsorship of students, which the Committee does not put a value on, but recommends them to increase. No figure is given for this and no legislation proposed to require it.
The case for a greater contribution to the funding of higher education to come from industry and commerce had indeed been well made, and evidently needed to be made. In the Consultation with Employers 39 per cent had expressed dissatisfaction with the skills and attributes of employees with higher education qualifications and another 11 per cent only expressed qualified satisfaction. The main source of dissatisfaction was in relation to communication and interpersonal skills, which had led the Committee to recommend to institutions of higher education that they should give more attention to such matters in their admission procedures and should introduce greater breadth as well as depth into their programmes. Institutions of higher education were also recommended in their programmes to help their students to 'become familiar with work and help them to reflect on such experience', and government was recommended 'to work with representative employer and professional organisations to encourage employers to offer more work experience opportunities for students.'
The scene was thus set for a recommendation that employers should increase their 2.7 per cent contribution to the costs of higher education. The extensive commissioned report (no.12), prepared for the Committee by London Economics had very frankly summarised the benefits to employers from an increase in the resources devoted to higher education:
- it increases the value that labour market entrants can add for employers, by teaching them directly useable skills;
- it serves employers as a way of screening potential employees according to their level of ability;
- labour market conditions affect the extent to which employers retain the value added by employees, and an increase in the supply of graduates relative to demand will also increase the share employers keep by bidding down their wages.'
In the conclusions to the Committee's national consultation, it is stated that
'On funding the general view is that students can and should be asked to bear a greater proportion of the costs of their higher education but that employers and -- to a lesser extent the major professional bodies -- might also be expected to offer more support.'
In spite of all the build-up, when the Committee finally decided upon the future funding of higher education, it said nothing more about the employers' contribution, recommended to the Government that 'over the long term, public spending on higher education should increase with the growth in Gross Domestic Product' and concluded that the financing gap should be filled by the students themselves. As the Committee's recommendation no 79 puts it:
'On a balance of considerations, we recommend to the Government that it introduces arrangements for graduates in work to make a flat rate contribution of around 25 per cent of the average cost of higher education tuition, through an income contingent mechanism ...'
In considering one possible means of obtaining a contribution from employers, the Committee examined the concept of Individual Learning Accounts, to which employers as well as individuals and government might contribute. The Labour Party has shown much interest in this concept and it has not been abandoned in Party thinking. But the Committee concluded that this was
'part of a much wider group of issues about the burden (emphasis added, MBB) on employers of employment and training costs. Compulsory contributions by employers to ILAs or training levies would simply add to employment costs'
-- and presumably thereby reduce competitiveness. The Committee sought to buttress its position, in arguing for the continuation of a major state contribution, even with students paying fees, by suggesting that employers would have narrow ends in view, although they conflated these with the views also of students, without drawing the same conclusion for them:
'Firms and individuals are most likely to engage primarily in training specific to their immediate needs. There is therefore a danger that, if left to employers or individuals, the nature and level of higher education will not best serve the long term needs of the economy as a whole and there will be underinvestment. The state alone is able to ensure that tomorrow's workforce is equipped with the widest range of skills and attributes.'
This is the point at which the Committee introduced their recommendation no.71 about public spending on higher education increasing 'with the growth in GDP'. Unfortunately, this sentence can bear two meanings. It might mean increasing 'in line with GDP' or 'as a proportion of GDP'. The ambiguity may be intentional, but in the preceding sentences, the Committee stated:
'We have noted the government's desire over the long term to increase the proportion [emphasis added] of national wealth devoted to education and training. We fully support that ambition and believe that it is in the national interest that, over the long term, public spending on higher education should rise in real terms [that must mean despite price increases which would apply equally, pari passu to GDP -- MBB].'
From this we must conclude that, while the government wanted to see a proportionate increase in spending on all education, the Committee supported only a linear increase in spending on higher education. If this is the intended meaning of Recommendation no.71, it is most regressive. With higher national income it should be possible to spare a larger proportion of income for higher education and not the same proportion. Indeed, it is hard to understand how it comes about that governments believe that with national income in real terms three times the levels of fifty years ago, twice that of thirty years ago, we cannot afford larger proportions of that income on health and education. The fact is that higher education continues to take about 1 per cent of UK national income and the return to the nearly 1.2 per cent figure of the 1970s which was achieved in 1994-5 was thereafter capped.
The Committee's aim of achieving a participation rate of 45 per cent of our young people in higher education within 20 years is a modest one, even if this is supplemented by an increase in mature students, that is to say, those who missed out the first time. What the Report often refers to as 'our competitors' have much higher figures in their sights, at least 60 per cent, and France has already achieved that figure. There is no question about the location of the shortfall in the UK. It is not as some had expected primarily among the recent immigrant population for whom English is a second language. Report no.5 on 'Widening participation in higher education by ethnic minorities' shows that non-white groups as a whole have a larger representation in higher education (12.2 per cent of the total) than their proportion of the population (7.3 per cent) of 18-20 year olds; and this overrepresentation applies equally at other ages. These overall figures conceal big differences between groups -- very high participation among Indians, very low among Bangladeshi women and Afro-Caribbean men -- and also between universities -- high among post 1992 universities, low among the older universities.
No longer is it the case that women are underrepresented in higher education. They now make up half the student body and no longer enrol predominantly in the post-1992 universities or on part-time courses, although their studies are still concentrated in certain subject areas, particularly the arts, humanities and languages. The big shortfall in higher education participation in the UK remains the small representation of what may be referred to as the lower socio-economic groups, most particularly in England. Indeed, as Report no.5 on 'Widening participation in higher education by students from lower socio-economic groups' points out, the 'overrepresentation' of some ethnic Asian groups in higher education, who because of labour market discrimination, find lower occupations than their education would indicate, must imply even smaller representation of lower socio-economic whites, particularly in England.
The surveys quoted in the Report show that 33 per cent of all 18-19 year olds in the UK come from families in socio-economic groups I and II, but they make up 58 per cent of the university population; 51 per cent come from families in group III and make up 36 per cent of the university population; while the 16 per cent from families in groups IV and V make up only 8 per cent. Moreover, while there has been a rapid increase over the 1980s and 1990s in the participation of the lowest groups in higher education, starting from a very low base, their proportional representation has not changed greatly. Men in groups IV and V are still particularly unlikely to participate.
The reasons for these disparities are examined at some length in Report no.6. Educational achievement at 18 is not surprisingly shown to be the largest single determinant of participation in higher education. But it then has to be said that of those who gain two 'A' levels or equivalent, 77 per cent from the highest socio-economic groups enter higher education, while only 47 per cent of those from the lowest groups. Moreover, those from the lower socio-economic groups tend to go on to sub-degree courses at their local institutions of what is called lower status. Studies by A.H. Halsey and others have all indicated that the neighbourhood, even the region, and the type of school from which a young person derives are the main determinants of whether with two 'A' levels under their belts, they actually apply for a University place.
There is some suggestion in the studies of participation in higher education that it is a question of culture. Children from the professional and managerial classes assume that they will be going on from school to university. Those from what we may still call the 'working classes' assume that they won't. Noone in their family did so before them and universities are seen as an object of fear, even of contempt. Such suggestions are hard to prove or disprove. What is abundantly clear is that family income is a crucial determinant. There are many recent studies which have shown poverty at home to be by far the largest single reason for poor performance at school, far more important than size of classes or methods of teaching. Of course, poverty is concentrated in certain regions and neighbourhoods and will not be found prevalent in the families of children at grammar schools, let alone private ('public') schools.
There are large pockets of poverty in Scotland, and it is highly significant that, while Scotland as a whole enjoys very high participation rates in higher education, the city of Glasgow with the highest concentration of poverty (and the largest number of universities) has a particularly low rate (15 per cent), a rate which has hardly changed over the years. Rates in English inner cities are equally low, the contrast with the suburbs and affluent countryside being particularly marked.
The effect of student incomes on their experience of university is clearly indicated in studies of student finance made in 1996 by C. Callender and E. Kempson of the London Policy Studies Institute. Students in socio-economic groups IV and V made up in larger grants and loans about the same student support income (£3000 plus) as those in group I, who drew mainly on their parents, but their other income from earnings, gifts and withdrawal from savings (£1500) was £500 less than what those from Group I received. Moreover, their essential expenses were £600 greater. This is because of the costs of housing and childcare of students from the lowest socio-economic groups, who will on average be older and because of hidden subsidies from their families (use of cars, books and household goods) available from wealthier parents but not from those more financially constrained.
Students with disabilities are also studied in Report no.6. The proportion able to study appears to be low, forming 2 per cent of the student body, whereas perhaps as much as 7 per cent of the 18-30 age group report long standing disability. Disabled students incur substantially greater costs than those that are not disabled and some institutions charge for special support. Disabled students can claim a means tested Disabled Students Allowance as full-time but not as part-time students. Institutions vary greatly in the facilities and policies applied in accepting disabled students. The Committee felt able to do no more than including disability in the reasons for low participation and one must assume that disability was included in its general recommendation (no.2) to 'Funding Bodies that when allocating funds for the expansion of higher education, they give priority to those which can demonstrate a commitment to widening participation, and have in place a participating strategy ...'
The Committee was not unaware that charging students fees, albeit on an income contingent loan scheme, was hardly likely to improve the participation of those coming from poorer homes. They therefore sought to strengthen the support available to potential HE entrants who would be most likely to find the extra cost a serious deterrent to further study. For full-time students, it is suggested that payments of contributions from income are not triggered until income after graduation reaches a certain figure and the percentage of income paid annually should be set at a reasonable level. No change was proposed by the Committee in the current means tested grants for maintenance costs, except that they should be allocated by a central support agency and no longer by local authorities. Loans would continue to be subsidised. The new government has, however, decided that the grants system is to be abolished and replaced entirely by loans.
For part-time students, most of whom already have to pay fees, the proposed provision is in some respects more favourable. Under the Committee's recommendation no.76, measures are proposed to ensure that 'there are no financial disincentives to part-time study by the unemployed or those on low incomes' including the 'waiving of tuition fees for part-time students in receipt of Jobseeker's Allowance or certain family benefits' and the Government 'should extend eligibility for Access Fund payments to part-time students from 1998-9; and additional funding should be made available for this purpose.' It was also proposed that part-time students as well as full-time students should be eligible for subsidised loans.
The question is whether the introduction of post-graduate income contingent contributions plus these limited support measures will be enough to stop the deterrent effect of charging fees, let alone encourage any expansion of participation in higher education. There are three arguments that the Committee seems to have overlooked. The first is that nothing has been done to overcome the resistance of parents, particularly from lower and even middle socio-economic groups, who will perceive much greater risks in the new system of student finance than the old and will advise their children accordingly. The second is that if, as it is hoped, participation in higher education is actually widened in England, the warning of the Warwick study and the London Economics Report will come into effect. An increase in the supply of graduates in the labour market could as a result of market forces weaken the bargaining power of graduates with employers and result in lower returns to the graduate from investment in higher education than are now to be reckoned on.
The third gap in the Committee's thinking relates to the lack of adequate ladders in England for advancing up the system from school to higher education, as there are in Scotland and in several European countries, such as would help to overcome initial resistance to fee paying education. The matter is mentioned in the chapter (7) on 'Widening Participation in Higher Education', but the only recommendations are that the funding bodies should 'promote progression to higher education', create a 'framework for data about lifelong learning' and that institutions of higher education should continue the use of a Progress File such as students will have been completing from the age of 14. Although this would help to establish comparable standards within a national framework of qualifications, this falls very far short of the Kennedy Report proposal for accumulating 'learning credits' within a 'New Learning Pathway'.
The Committee's recommendation no.1 that the cap should be lifted immediately on sub-degree places, where it expected the greatest increase in demand, while the cap on full-time undergraduate places was only to be lifted over the next two to three years, does not suggest much awareness of a progression. Nor does the recommendation (no.67) that priority in growth in sub-degree provision should be accorded to further education colleges, where there should be no growth in degree level qualifications offered. While employers may be expected to be particularly interested in such an expansion in further education, it was not for the Dearing Committee to recommend who should pay for this.
The suggestion that the employers will after all be making their contribution to higher education through the earnings of their graduate employees could become a rather sick joke. The more graduates there are the lower their price will fall. There is in any case a considerable differential in the earnings of graduates having similar years of education and work experience, according to their colour and their gender and any disability. In a table taken from the Labour Force Survey printed in Report no.5 on 'Widening Participation', it appears that white males without a disability can expect to be earning a least £2 an hour more than their coloured, female or disabled fellow graduates. It will take them different times to pay back their higher education fees and the other borrowings that they will have incurred.
The Committee's proposal is for an income contingent contribution from students, but unless this contribution towards their fees in higher education is related to their future income, so that those who earn more pay more, not only absolutely but proportionally, the whole proposal is regressive. The Committee avers that they 'would be reluctant to see any reduction in public subsidies for the students from the poorest families being used, in effect, to increase subsidies to the better off'. But that is just what their proposal does, if the proportion of cost met by the state is reduced by an increase in the proportion paid by students and the student proportion is more regressive than the present income tax structure. A graduate tax could have met this point, but the Committee rejected this for reasons that appear highly dubious -- the probability of tax avoidance, the absence of hypothecation for higher education of the tax receipt and the absence of examples in other countries of a graduate tax.
The Committee reported that they were particularly impressed by the use of an income contingent contribution for higher education in Australia. This is not a very encouraging model, since the participation rate, according to Appendix 5. on 'Higher Education in Other Countries' is no higher in Australia than that in the UK and has remained stuck at around 30 per cent since 1990. More than half of Australian students benefit, moreover, from an income support scheme for maintenance costs. Small though this is, it reduces the scale of student borrowing.
One of the stated aims of the Committee was to widen participation in higher education in the UK in order to build a more inclusive society. The charging of fees for higher education, with whatever form of pay back system, and the ending of maintenance grants, cannot be expected to lead to greater equality but rather to the perpetuation of existing inequalities. The most obvious form that this is likely to take is a two-tier or three-tier or even four-tier system of higher education. The Committee's proposal that public grants for higher education should follow the student rather than the institution provides an important form of student choice, but, given the extreme inequality of students' family incomes, inequality will only be perpetuated and become cumulative.
There is a strange sense of Hamlet without the Prince in a report which omits mention of the dominant position among university entrants of the fee-paying schools, with their crucial charitable status still in place under New Labour, which has only denied access to those dependent on assisted places. Already, the public schools and grammar schools capture a disproportionate number of places at Oxbridge, where a 'top-up fee' for 'institutions of excellence' is already being mooted. Below the two ancient universities are the other pre-1992 universities which are open to applicants from the whole country, and are costly because attendance generally implies the need for accommodation away from home. Here too, 'top-up fees' are being discussed. Further below them are the post-1992 universities, which mainly meet the needs of the surrounding population and provide for large numbers of part-time students. At the bottom are the Colleges of Further Education, which offer some degree as well as sub-degree courses and which the Committee believed should take over most sub-degree work and drop their degree work.
This is where the Kennedy Committee Report on 'Widening Participation in Further Education' becomes relevant (entitled Learning Works and published by the Further Education Funding Council). The message of this report is that there is a huge gap in post-16 learning, not only in preparation for higher education, but in its own right, which is waiting to be filled. Far more young people would go on studying after school-leaving age and far more older people would come back to studying, if they were approached in the right way and if resources were made available. Certainly, the evidence presented in the Dearing Report on the low take up of higher education from school even of those with two 'A' Levels among the lower socio-economic groups indicates that there is something seriously wrong with the provision that is available. At what point in the ladder the rungs should be strengthened is not clear, but the presumption must be that it is at school and among the general public, many of whom would consider going back to studying, if they had the chance. The new Government has promised to give them that chance. But this requires from all employers the provision of paid educational leave if it is to create the basis for true and universal lifelong learning.
The Dearing Committee commissioned a whole report on students' experiences and expectations. The resulting comments should make University teachers blush, although they may be somewhat excused in the light of the increasing number of students they have had to teach with no increase in resources. The complaints of mature and part-time students are particularly telling and must raise profound questions, which the Committee does not adequately address, of the dysfunction, not between what students expected and what they experienced, but between that experience and the labour market in which they were nearly all still employed, but in which many hoped to advance themselves. The point has already been made that the Committee failed to recognise the trend to higher levels of unemployment and to a shorter working life, and corresponding greater need to prepare for the use of more leisure time.
There is absolutely no indication in the main Report or in the commissioned reports that the question was ever raised by the Committee whether increasing national economic competitiveness was an appropriate objective for higher education and whether higher education was in fact a major contributor to economic competitiveness. These were just assumed to be given from the Committee's terms of reference. The consultation with employers revealed a fairly sceptical attitude about the value to them of higher education, but that could have been influenced by their reluctance to make any increased contribution to its financing, except quite directly for their own staff development. More important is the fact recorded by the studies in Report no.2 that the major benefit believed to have been realised from higher education by part-time (mainly older) students was the 'experience of intellectual growth and stimulation', full-time, younger students having a much more job-skill oriented expectation and reporting a wider range of experiences at university, of meeting people, having a good time and increasing self-esteem. As a Manchester University professor of sociology put it, 'Mature students know that they need educating for life, not training for work'.
On the face of it, this may appear to be just a clever soundbite, but it incorporates something more than the recognition that a smaller part of our lives in future will consist of time spent at work. There is a general recognition also, acknowledged in the Dearing Report, that University programmes need greater breadth, and reflected in the employers' complaint of their graduate intake's lack of personal development and inter-personal communication skills, which an education that goes beyond vocational training might be expected to supply. Sir Stewart Sutherland's study of Teacher Education and Training (Report no.10) specifically emphasises the potential role of higher education in adding to Initial Teacher Training the development of 'reflective practitioners' able to engage with educational research and in ensuring 'Continual Professional Development' of teachers. Sir Stewart's observations were reflecting the OFSTED reports between 1994 and 1996 which provided evidence that 'insufficient high quality entrants are being attracted (to teaching) in comparison to other professions.' The inequalities of a divided society appear in student's choices of a career, with among other manifestations of this division a high proportion of Oxbridge graduates among the staffs of the 'public schools'.
It is unlikely that universities will be able to make much contribution to equality or social inclusion in the UK or anywhere else, without other more direct measures being taken by government to redistribute wealth and income from the rich to the poor. As it is, universities will continue to be a part of the process which maintains under a capitalist system a constant tendency for wealth and poverty to accumulate at opposite poles. In the UK this is reinforced, as we have noted already, by the so-called 'public school system', which Archbishop Temple, as early as 1942 described as a 'shocking anomaly'. Drawing upon another great moralist and remembering that academic discipline means more than rules and regulations and that by 'masters' he did not only mean the teachers, we shall do well to take to heart Adam Smith's adage in his Theory of Moral Sentiments:
'The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters.'
David Browning of the Open College Federation has suggested to me that it is important in discussing the purposes of education to explore how we use the concepts of work and leisure. I have argued in reviewing the Dearing Report that higher education should be concerned as much with preparing men and women for leisure as for work, particularly since the proportion of our lives devoted to work in the future seems certain to be greatly reduced. But then that depends, as David Browning insists, on what we mean by 'work' -- work in the factory, work in the office, work in the classroom, work in the studio, work in the home, work in the garden? Firoze Manji of Amnesty International has proposed, in answer, that in each case something is transformed by human activity -- materials, ideas, understanding, vision, foodstuffs, seed and soil. But, then, what would it mean to educate for transformative activities? Is there any real distinction to be made between work-time and leisure-time activities?
We may begin by looking at the origins of the words -- work, job and labour, leisure and recreation -- and at how they have changed their meanings over time. And we can start with Raymond Williams' study of these words in his Key Words. The word 'work' begins only as an expression for the application of energy to any activity, the root being the same as in 'erg', the measure of energy applied. 'Job' was originally only a 'piece' of work. 'Work' originally had a strong sense of pain and toil, 'toiling' being the work of stirring and crushing. 'Labour' likewise combined the senses of work and pain, as it still does when we speak of labour in childbirth. 'Labour' was hard work, as in the French labourer, to plough or 'work' the land. In mediaeval Latin the only word for work had the same meaning as torture, trepalium, from which comes our word 'travail' and the French word for work, travailler.
So, it will not be a surprise that the source of the word 'leisure' is the same as that of 'license', something that is permitted or allowed. 'Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work', so Moses commanded, 'But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work...' For Christians pressure was relaxed also on holy days, holidays, when the birth and death of Christ and of the saints were remembered. This was the time literally for 're-creation'. But for the rest of the year the commandment was unbending. St Paul admonished the Thessalonians 'that, if any would not work, neither should they eat' and went on 'For, we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.' But work in the Old Testament is generally for hirelings, and in Greece and Rome something for slaves, not proper to a citizen, who should be freed for the pursuit of ethical and political activities.
It was not until the Eighteenth Century that work began to carry the meaning generally of work for hire, for a wage and the supply of work as labour. The meaning of labour shifted from the productive effort to the relations of people in production. This was firstly the result of the development of the productive relations of capitalism, and then as a further result, the introduction in political economy of the word 'labour' as a generalisation for all work and workers. So Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations wrote of the 'annual labour of every nation' and went on to assign to 'labour ... the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities'.
The labour theory of value was taken up and elaborated by Marx, who saw work as the central ethos of human beings. By their work, in battling with nature, they created wealth, which was then available for distribution. But he made a clear distinction between work as it was at the time when he was writing, in which men and women were alienated from nature and from their own production, and work as it would be in a free society, where they would find fulfilment for all in their relationship to nature and to their fellow human beings. Wage labour, however, became established as the human function that gave meaning and structure to people's lives, albeit that they were exploited in the process. Being 'in work' was to be part of society, being 'out of work' was to be excluded. And so it is still today.
What then is meant by educating people for the 'world of work'? This, indeed, is what has been happening, as step by step the productive process has required increasingly more educated workers. The state has been called in to fund and to guarantee educational provision, which no individual employer would provide, lest he paid for educating workers whom his competitors could poach from him. According to the Dearing Report, the British economy has reached the stage at which it requires increasing numbers of workers with higher education. They are not only in short supply, but the shortage is making them costly. The employers still do not want to have to pay for their education, if the public through state taxation and the students themselves can be persuaded to meet the bill.
The role of the state had to change, when people were dispossessed of their land and became wage labourers. They had to claim rights to survival and above all the right to work. When nation states began to take responsibility for their citizens' survival and well being, workers demanded measures by the state to ensure full employment, since the means of production had been taken from them and concentrated in the hands of employers who were the owners of capital. Against this, liberals always denied such a claim, since it would give the state too much power over the freedom of the individual to trade and do business. A new argument is being promoted today by New Labour that such rights as the right to work carry corresponding obligations. But so far it seems that the obligations are being placed only upon the workers, while the employers' practices are being de-regulated. In the argument over this issue, it is still being assumed, however, that work in the form of paid employment provides the central meaning and structuring of the lives of most men and women.
Socialists originally challenged this whole concept, and offered a a vision of social value taking the place of economic value. William Morris's utopian News from Nowhere is the finest example of this vision in the English language. Looking forward, optimistically only a hundred years on from 1890, Morris imagines himself speaking with a Londoner about the pleasurableness of work after the revolutionary change in social relations that Morris envisaged already to have taken place.
'All work is now pleasurable, either because of the hope of gain in honour and wealth with which the work is done, which causes pleasurable excitement, even when the actual work is not pleasant; or else because it has grown into a pleasurable habit, as in the case with what you may call mechanical work; and lastly (and most of our work is of this kind) because there is conscious sensuous pleasure in the work itself; it is done, that is, by artists.'
In the event, throughout the last hundred years, the workers' movement through its trade unions has had to accept the economic framework of capitalism and fight for its rights within that framework. Only if these rights cannot be guaranteed within a capitalist framework, does the framework itself come into question. Mass unemployment in the 1930s did bring it into question and the same question must be raised again today. Socialists have always assumed that more and wider education would make for greater equality and bring people to seek cooperative and socialist solutions to human problems. It has not happened. The Dearing Report has revealed the inequalities in educational provision, its competitive aims and the iniquities in its financing.
If education has not yet produced social change, we should perhaps be looking at the immediate objectives of education. It has then to be asked what would be these objectives if economic value was displaced by social value as the ultimate aim? It cannot just be a matter of education for leisure instead of education for work. What is at issue is paid employment and the power of the employer to determine what values are created and how they are created. What would social value mean as distinct from economic value? The only indications that exist today are in the development of what is called 'the third sector of the economy'. This is the area of largely unpaid, voluntary work, for non-governmental organisations, in political parties and trade unions, in the caring services, in aid agencies, in sports and other recreational associations. It is reported that in Britain two thirds of the adult population are involved in some such organisation and a half in more than one.
The implications of this development for education are obvious. Already there is a strong demand on further and adult education providers to meet the training and educational needs of such voluntary workers. As the 'third sector' grows in size and complexity, the demands which it makes on education will not only be greater but are likely to involve qualitatively more advanced studies. How different will this be from the demand for higher education to meet economic needs? Methods of teaching and learning, through discussion and self study rather than instruction, so long typical of adult education, have begun to feed back into higher education generally. By the same token, the content will have to change too, not so much perhaps in the natural sciences and technology, but in social and economic studies, and most particularly in the intermediate areas of psychology, physiology, anthropology and their links with human history and biological evolution. And one must suppose a huge increase in demand for language teaching, as Europe becomes more unified, and in the demand for all the arts and crafts, as people have more time not only for passive but for active involvement in music and the different art forms, drama and sports.
One cannot be certain whether the growth of the 'third sector' and of education to meet its demands will expedite a major challenge to the power of private capital and its prioritising of economic needs. It can hardly leave this power unaffected. Already, movements for more ethical and more ecologically sustainable business are growing apace. How far these will be able to be accommodated within the parameters of capital accumulation may be doubted. But there seems to be little doubt that the spread of information technology and the networking economy must greatly reduce the need for large-scale organisations and the corresponding advantage of access to large scale capital. As information capital replaces money capital, one can imagine very different needs for education emerging from such a development and a much more equal society in which free access for all to higher education, not 30 per cent or even 60 per cent but all, would become one of the first demands upon the resources of society. It would be no more acceptable that only some should be able to be educated to the full extent of their capacities than that only some should be able to benefit from the full range of medical services.
The challenge will be great, not for national competitiveness or economic domination, but for the full realisation of the capacities of all. As Kevin Kelly has it, writing on 'The New Rules of the New Economy' in Wired, September 1997, 'in the Network Economy, where machines do most of the inhumane work of manufacturing, the task for each worker is not "how to do this job right" but "what is the right job to do".' Such exploration will need all the stimulation of the imagination and the appreciation of social value that higher education can give. But, of course, it will not only be higher education whose purposes will have to change but the whole educational process for everyone. From learning to exercise certain skills, which for most men and women others will control, it will become for all learning to understand and control one's own experiences.
Next section - Part III - The Fryer Report