Mandelson says academics are ’set in aspic’ - The Guardian, 11 février 2010

Business secretary defends higher education cuts and insists universities are not being singled out for tough treatment

Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, today defended the government’s controversial £950m university cuts package and accused academics of being "set in aspic".

Mandelson said that public spending cuts had to happen and it was an illusion to believe universities were being singled out for the harshest punishment.

But university lecturers are resistant to change "and think they have a right to be set in aspic in what they do", he said. "They are using the argument about spending reductions as a screen or a cloak behind which resistance to any sort of change and reform can be conducted."

Last week, universities were asked to save £449m in 2010-11. On top of this, Alistair Darling, the chancellor, announced higher education savings of £600m in the pre-budget report in December. The elite Russell Group of universities, which includes Oxford and Cambridge, warned that the cuts could bring universities "to their knees" within six months.

"I expect cuts to be greeted with dismay – some of it vocal and critical," said Mandelson. But he added that the cuts would not "leave our best institutions on their knees".

The cuts come as applications for undergraduate courses rise by a fifth – they are now at a record high of 570,000. Professor Michael Arthur, head of the Russell Group, warned MPs at the science and technology select committee yesterday that every science department in the country was "on the edge" financially.

Speaking at a conference in Nottingham to commemorate Lord Dearing, the architect of Labour’s university tuition fees, Mandelson said : "Much of the rest of the public sector will receive similar constraints in the course of this year or soon after."

The timing of higher education funding cycles meant that ministers needed to announce the savings they wanted universities to make early, he said.

"The appearance that universities are in the frontline of public spending cuts is an illusion created by that need to plan ahead. I have always said that higher education would have to bear its share of public spending cuts, but not more. Public funding cuts are the regrettable cost to the UK of saving the banking sector and getting the country through the recession," he said.

But Mandelson also said it "made no sense" to create more traditional three-year degree courses, and called for two-year degrees to be rolled out to cater for the growing number of students combining study with work.

There is "no sense at all in which these alternatives should be seen as inferior" to the three-year equivalents, he said. The savings to higher education would not necessarily lead to a drop in quality and it was "a process that needs to happen anyway", he said.

Students who missed out on a university place should go to college or take up an apprenticeship instead, he said. No matter how tempting it might be, it would not be right to guarantee every applicant a full-time university place.

"It makes no sense, either in terms of the cost to the public purse or the provision of quality teaching, which remains critical to the credibility of higher education.

"A large-scale, untargeted further expansion of full-time three-year degrees, without any real attention to what these additional students are studying, or how well it equips them for life at work, also makes no sense at a time when we need to be focusing more closely on strategic skills and alternatives to full-time study."

Mandelson’s comments come a day after a leading scientist attacked the government for funding students doing "Mickey Mouse" degrees and called for the money to be spent on science instead.

Dr Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said degrees in celebrity journalism, drama combined with waste management, and international football business management – all of which exist – should be "kicked into touch".

Academics fear that more cuts could be announced in the budget in March. Darling said last month that halving the UK’s £178bn deficit within four years was "non-negotiable" and that the budget would explain where the cuts would be made.

Steve Smith, president of Universities UK, told the Times Higher Education magazine : "We cannot be certain that we will not be expected to deal with 17% cuts on top of what has already been announced."

But Mandelson would not be drawn on whether the budget would include more savings for higher education.

The lecturers’ union UCU said the business secretary did not understand the severity of the cuts.

Sally Hunt, UCU’s general secretary, said : "It is quite outrageous that students who have been told by this government to aim higher their entire school lives are now having the door slammed shut in their faces.

"Academics care a great deal for their institutions and higher education overall. They are understandably frustrated and angry at the business secretary’s failure to grasp the severity of his planned cuts.

"Cuts have consequences, and Lord Mandelson would be better off listening to the academy’s concerns rather than rudely dismissing them."