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We've seen some fairly substantial changes in the Higher Education Sector here in the UK over the last few decades. Fees have increased to nine grand per head, attendance has soared up to something along the lines of 40% of all kids, and practically all polytechnics transitioned into being Universities.

That all having occurred, the sector is now looking at a fairly major shakeup. The factors are:-

-Brexit. The Government has pledged to replace lost EU research funds, but how those will be distributed and other key details are still missing.

-Immigration. Will the tightening up of border control result in less international students? We've already had issues with regards to a number of lower tier Universities using student visas to help people with no intention of being students get to the UK (London Metropolitan had their visa license revoked). Will things be further tightened up in that regard? If so, how will that affect foreign student attendance?

-Rising fees. The Government is already seeking permission to raise fees further. People are already less willing to do humanities degree at lower tier Universities due to insanely high fees for low future employment payoff. Those Universities in turn do not have the funds to compete with the upper tier ones in STEM fields. How will this affect the number of young people willing to attend them?

-Competition. The Government is attempting to make it easier for institutions to gain degree awarding powers. This in turn could open the field up to new players at all levels. Is this a good thing to help weed out the unis that are a waste of time and inefficient, or a crass commercialisation of the HE sector? Or both at the same time?

-Postgraduate education. The tories have already brought in £10,000 towards any masters degree, and from 2018, PhD students will get help towards funding. With record levels of unemployed postdoctorates however, will this manufacture more people with the highest qualifications that can't get a job?

-Unlimited student numbers - The Government has now made it so that Univeristies can take any number of students with top grades. Doesn't this just funnel the best and brightest to a few key elite institutions, sabotaging all the others? Should Universities be limited in how many students they are permitted to take, or is more of a free market mentality required?

-New technical colleges - New announcements appear to indicate the Government is considering sponsoring the setting up of new technical colleges. Won't this divert funding and students away from bottom tier Unis even further, leaving them to close? Isn't this just turning the clock back to polytechnics?

Generally, it's looking increasingly likely thart those Universities at the bottom of the league tables are going to be sorely pressed in upcoming years, and we'll see several collapse most likely. Do you reckon it's a good or bad thing? Discuss!

I've given this issue a lot of thought, and my brief conclusion is this:

In a post-Brexit Britain, a small island with minimal natural resources and a population of 67 million, is never going to win the numbers game against China, India, or the USA.

We need to maximise resources and push towards the elite end of the spectrum.

For example, food production. If we can produce high quality food made to a very high standard with the best food standards in the world, that in itself will sell, as there will always be a market for quality.

And I advocate a similar approach to not just higher education, but education in general. Be the best we can be. Let's have a small number of elite universities produce high quality graduates.

The scientific, engineering, and industrial heritage of this nation is the best in the world IMO. It's mind boggling the stuff this small island invented or discovered.

That is a resource we can tap into.

Sure, India or China can produce 10,000 good engineers a month or wahtever, but if we can produce 100 excellent engineers, we can still compete.

Also, we need to give balance and create a career path for those who choose not to or are not able to gain entry to Universities. I think the return of polytechnics is a great idea. Having a respectable trade: chef, bricklayer, builder, whatever, should be looked upon as a good move.

And of course, the great challenge of automation is something we need to prepare for.

To conclude, challenges are ahead for UK higher education, but if we adapt and innovate, I trust in the skills, knowledge and ability of this nation to pull through. We've been doing it for centuries.

I agree the logical development of the situation leads to a reduction in student numbers and therefore funding for universities. This is likely to cause the bottom tier to fail. This probably would be a good thing since they are the establishments taking in the weakest students, who arguably should not be on weak-sauce degree courses in the first place. (Golf Course Management, etc.)

The return of Polytechnics is a good thing since it fills in the vocational educational sector which is so important.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I agree the logical development of the situation leads to a reduction in student numbers and therefore funding for universities. This is likely to cause the bottom tier to fail. This probably would be a good thing since they are the establishments taking in the weakest students, who arguably should not be on weak-sauce degree courses in the first place. (Golf Course Management, etc.)

The return of Polytechnics is a good thing since it fills in the vocational educational sector which is so important.

Golf course management, in the form of greenkeeping for golf courses and sports stadia, is a respectable trade in my book, and should be encouraged as part of a new vocational focus.

My views on a massive housebuilding programme to solve the UK's housing woes, are well documented on these forums, so shifting people away from higher education and into the building trade is to be encouraged in my book.

The issue for universities is not around students, and education is not the main aim of Russel Group anyway. It's research where we have a problem. Russel Group have students not as their core business, but to produce the next generation of researchers. They will claim otherwise, but that's where most of the money comes from.

Our universities are world class research organizations. Despite tiny funding compared to US universities Oxford and Cambridge rank right at the top, with many more in the top with Imperial and UCL normally in the top 10 and many more in the top 20. This is where we will be hit. At the moment we manage to compete by access to EU funded projects and equipment. ESA, CERN, JET etc may all face issues. At the moment Oxfords endowment is about 5billion. MIT's is 15billion, and they only deal with a small fraction of subjects. Yales is 25billion. We will also struggle to access funding for projects from across Europe. Our top universities means plenty of EU funding comes our way, as do plenty of EU academics.

In the long term there could be serious damage to our HE sector, depending on how the EU reacts, if they keep giving us access to EU research money and immigration rules.

 Steve steveson wrote:
The issue for universities is not around students, and education is not the main aim of Russel Group anyway. It's research where we have a problem. Russel Group have students not as their core business, but to produce the next generation of researchers. They will claim otherwise, but that's where most of the money comes from.

I currently studying for a MSc at a Russel group university (University of Birmingham) and the majority of my peers are looking to do PhDs and then work in the university labs. To be honest that's not really a bad thing (although my course is perhaps a bit too focused on the university's main areas of research) as academically it is still a very rigorous course, perhaps lacking in 'real world' applications but then again that's not it's focus.

If the government actually matches EU funding then things may not be that bad although given that research in general is heavily dependent on collaboration tightened immigration laws are not likely to help.

What I would like to see in the UK education sector in general is a lot more funding going to secondary schools in particular. Education is the primary driver of wealth and social equality, it needs to be funded appropriately.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I agree the logical development of the situation leads to a reduction in student numbers and therefore funding for universities. This is likely to cause the bottom tier to fail. This probably would be a good thing since they are the establishments taking in the weakest students, who arguably should not be on weak-sauce degree courses in the first place. (Golf Course Management, etc.)

Golf Course Managers probably earn more than teachers though....

Train drivers earn more than teachers. Perhaps that is part of why there is a problem in English education.

No disrespect to train drivers is intended.

A lack of respect for the teaching profession is part of the issue too. Especially as it seems many parents see schools as a form of daycare rather than learning (primary source, my entire family teaches or has taught)

Magister wrote:
A lack of respect for the teaching profession is part of the issue too. Especially as it seems many parents see schools as a form of daycare rather than learning (primary source, my entire family teaches or has taught)

Schools pretty much are daycare, which is not necessarily an entirely bad thing. They're more important in a student's social development than their intellectual development. It takes over a decade to teach a kid what really could be learned in a few years for a person who actually wants to learn it.

It's not a reason to not respect teachers, it's more a commentary on the education system in general.

Children don't have the cognitive development and skills of adults and can't learn things as quickly. Part of going to school is to get this development. Socialisation is also an important process at school. To call schools "childcare" is a simplification, though.

I think also that childcare is a very important task and should be given respect, except that it isn't because it is largely done by women.

All that said, the thread is about higher education.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Children don't have the cognitive development and skills of adults and can't learn things as quickly. Part of going to school is to get this development. .

Is this true though? There's a reason they say you should start languages and instruments young, after all. I also recall reading a biography where a reasonably famous economist said he effectively spent his childhood being coached by his father, and from what I can ascertain, his nine year old knowledge surpassed that of most eighteen year olds today.

I find it interesting that there appears to be a general indifference to the survival of the thirty or so bottom tier universities. That doesn't bode well for them.

Children's mental development goes through various phases recognised by medical science. Naturally intellectual development is also influenced by innate ability and by the environment, and everyone doesn't mature at the same rate.

It may be that it is easier to learn languages by absorption at a young age, but children don't learn calculus and probability by absorption.

As for the bottom 30 universities, while the DakkaDakka audience is small and self-selecting, I suspect there probably is a general indifference to the bottom tier. In my view it reflects the fact that they aren't very good and aren't needed.

 Ketara wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Children don't have the cognitive development and skills of adults and can't learn things as quickly. Part of going to school is to get this development. .

Is this true though? There's a reason they say you should start languages and instruments young, after all. I also recall reading a biography where a reasonably famous economist said he effectively spent his childhood being coached by his father, and from what I can ascertain, his nine year old knowledge surpassed that of most eighteen year olds today.

I find it interesting that there appears to be a general indifference to the survival of the thirty or so bottom tier universities. That doesn't bode well for them.

Yeah. Learning languages seems to be lot harder the older you get. I have been struggling more with Japanese than English and took me longer time to get to decent level in japanese than in english. And motivation with japanese was lot bigger than with english! English I had to start learning due to school and got enough use due to internet and movies/tv to keep at it. Japanese I picked up because I wanted to learn it(at first to have survival skills when I go there, then it got really interesting and then when I learned to read enough to start reading real stuff it really kicked into high gear).

Kids seems to pick up language naturally as long as they are exposed to it. Maybe adults are too analystic or something to learn them quickly

My elderly father's solution to Britain's educational and social woes is the return of the belt and the gallows.

With the Tories in charge, who knows what's going to happen?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Children don't have the cognitive development and skills of adults and can't learn things as quickly. Part of going to school is to get this development. Socialisation is also an important process at school. To call schools "childcare" is a simplification, though.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply actual kids could learn everything by age 8, rather that we spend age 5 through 18 teaching them what could be taught from age 15 to 18 or 18 to 21 or whatever. I missed almost all my schooling for personal reasons and when I went through high school as an adult in the equivalent of a tech school I met lots of people who had missed schooling for various reasons and most did a decent job of picking up several years worth of work in the space of a semester or two, the bigger struggle for many of the people studying as adults was that they were then trying to juggle education with other adult responsibilities or personal struggles.

I tend to think in an ideal world education up to almost university would be more open, focusing on a few key essentials but not wasting too much time on technical and abstract concepts the kids aren't going to appreciate or need unless they go in to specialised fields, but then having more focused, intensive, and faster pace classes in those technical and abstract concepts for people of any age who want to go in to those specific fields.

Maybe education is better in the UK but I imagine it's similar to over here where enthusiastic kids get hamstrung but your also running other kids in to the ground trying to teach them stuff they both don't need and don't care about enough to learn to any acceptable level if they ever do find themselves in a higher education situation.

I think also that childcare is a very important task and should be given respect, except that it isn't because it is largely done by women.

I don't really think either of those things are true, either that child care workers aren't given respect or that they aren't given respect because they're mostly women. They don't necessarily get paid well, but pay rate and respect are two different things. Pay rate is about how much people think your service is worth, not how much people respect you for doing it.

Is this "UK" Higher Education or "English" Higher Education (I can't speak for Northern Ireland or Wales, so the generalisation may be apt)? Yes, a lot of that effects the UK as a whole, but ...Higher Education is largely free in Scotland.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Yes, a lot of that effects the UK as a whole, but ...Higher Education is largely free in Scotland.

Scottish universities will still be subject to the same forces that Brexit will force on those in the rUK. If fees rise significantly due to reduced funding will the Scottish government be able to afford to subsides university places?

Kilkrazy wrote: It may be that it is easier to learn languages by absorption at a young age, but children don't learn calculus and probability by absorption.

I think the language thing has been proven wrong, or rather attributed to kids using language all the time and thus learning fast and not because of somehow favourable neuroplasticity at that age. And for the mathematics bit you can read Mindstorms (if you haven't) by Seymour Papert (it's a great). It's about how computers can help us learn better (shown and explained on mathematics) by using constructionist learning and young kids can easily learn mathematical concepts that they get taught years later with regular methods.

From the second link:

The word constructionism is a mnemonic for two aspects of the theory of science education underlying this project. From constructivist theories of psychology we take a view of learning as a reconstruction rather than as a transmission of knowledge. Then we extend the idea of manipulative materials to the idea that learning is most effective when part of an activity the learner experiences as constructing a meaningful product.

Lego Mindstorms was inspired by his work and also the idea that computers can somehow improve education just by putting them in schools and providing a digital version of old methods too. It's an misguided attempt of interpreting his work. People thought the computers were the important part of his work and not the actual methods he proposed.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/01/26/no-longer-welcome-the-eu-academics-in-britain-told-to-make-arrangements-to-leave/

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Is this "UK" Higher Education or "English" Higher Education (I can't speak for Northern Ireland or Wales, so the generalisation may be apt)? Yes, a lot of that effects the UK as a whole, but ...Higher Education is largely free in Scotland.

It's free if you're a Scottish resident.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
Train drivers earn more than teachers. Perhaps that is part of why there is a problem in English education.

No disrespect to train drivers is intended.

I'd suggest it's right down to a supply & demand situation; the economy would grind to a halt *now* if there's a lack of train drivers, whereas the entire public school teacher contingent could be laid off immediately, and besides a (minor) spike in unemployment the effects wouldn't be felt for, let's say, 7 years.