David Blunkett wrote to the Higher Education Funding Council for England on
23 November, announcing the resources to be provided for higher education for 2000-01 and 2001-02. The main financial message is sadly familiar: funding per student is to continue to fall at 1% per year, and since the costs of universities rise at a faster rate than the inflation rate assumed in this calculation, the real funding per student will fall by substantially more than 1% per year.
There is to be expansion in student numbers, but most of the expansion will be in two-year sub-degree programmes in further education colleges. The Secretary of State's announcement also makes strong statements about the need for universities to produce employable graduates: "Graduates ... need the generic skills which most employers demand: team working, communication, and some understanding of the world of work. Some universities are already making sure their graduates have these skills ... More could do so. Universities need to be aware of skill shortages in the economy ... I am therefore asking universities ... to accelerate the development of vocationally orientated elements within all courses ... I will want to see evidence of increased capacity in these areas over the next twelve months."
These statements might ring alarm bells: the mission of this University is not the provision of vocational education. But we do not have to be defensive. Any society will want its higher education system to produce graduates equipped for socially useful careers. Directly vocational courses are not the only route to the achievement of this objective. Even the most non-vocational degree programmes can and should provide students with opportunities to develop skills of team working, communication and problem solving. Following the report of the Student Development Working Party, we are working to increase such elements within our degrees.
And even in a university whose central mission is not vocational, some forms of professional and vocational education are an integral part of our activities, notably postgraduate courses in areas such as education and social policy. A research-oriented university should not be an ivory tower and this kind of activity is an essential link between the University and the community to which we belong.
Research links with the world outside the University are increasingly important too and it is a great pleasure to congratulate ourselves on the University's success in obtaining a grant of over £1m from the funding council to improve the commercial exploitation of the University's research.
And continuing the congratulatory note: all involved in the recent QAA Subject Review of Biochemistry deserve our congratulations on an excellent result.
Many of you will regard this as my last Bulletin contribution of this millennium. I'm afraid that I belong to the pedantic minority that believes that the end of 1000 years comes at the end of the year numbered 1000. I therefore wish you all, at the end of this month, a Happy New Year and I look forward to leading the University into the new millennium in a year's time.
