APPENDIX 75
Memorandum from the Higher Education Policy
Institute
1. The Secretary of State has asked HEFCE
to investigate what should be done about subjects which are important
to the nation but which are under threat because of the closure
of university departments, and the Select Committee is now investigating
the same issue. Are these just knee-jerk reactions to something
which is no more than the normal ebb and flow of university activity?
Or is there a real problem, and if so what is its nature? The
closure of a number of university departments recently has certainly
been high-profile, and has attracted extensive media coverage.
The departments concerned have covered a range of subjects—chemistry,
Middle Eastern studies and architecture, for example. Why should
these be of concern suddenly whereas universities have been opening
and closing departments for many years? And why should it matter
anyway if a university decides to close a department?
2. The reason why there may be good grounds
for concern is that universities make decisions about such matters
in light of their perceptions of their own interests; and it is
therefore a legitimate question to ask whether the sum of the
interests of individual universities necessarily equates to the
national interest. On the other hand, even if it does not, it
is equally legitimate to ask whether bureaucratic or political
intervention is likely to lead to better results than universities
acting in their own self-interest, even if those results are sub-optimal.
Finally, by way of introduction, it is worth bearing in mind that
after the 1989 Research Assessment Exercise there was not a single
chemistry department that received lower than a 2 grade that was
left intact. The closures and mergers that followed 1989 were
generally applauded as an example of strong and decisive management.
3. In asking HEFCE for advice about this
question, the Government is essentially considering supply-side
interventions, and this seems to be the focus of the Select Committee's
review as well. One cannot be unduly critical about this, since
by and large, supply-side actions are the most tractable, and
they are what Governments can most easily undertake. However,
there is no reason to think that the fundamental problems being
faced by the subjects in question are ones of supply, and there
are some spectacular examples of supply-side action in the past
which have failed to have any effect whatsoever. A good example
of this was the Government's engineering and technology initiative
in the early 1980s, where a great deal of additional money was
provided for science and technology places in universities which
subsequently stood empty, with gleaming equipment and vacant laboratory
benches. The supply was increased, but there was no corresponding
demand. On the other hand, teacher education is an area where
it is well-known that the supply-side is not the problem, and
the Government has responded by providing strong incentives aimed
at increasing student demand, and with some success.
4. There has, of course, until now been
one well established entirely supply-side programme. However,
although the HEFCE minority subjects programme is one that is
aimed solely at supply, this is very small scale, and almost by
its nature is not scalable. On the other hand, it explicitly recognises
that that there are some subjects that are important (the criterion
for importance is academic diversity) which need explicit funding
if the UK is to maintain a presence in that subject. In terms
of rationale, that is relevant as we look more widely at subjects
where provision is in decline, and it would be legitimate to extend
the criteria to subjects where the nation needs to have a source
of expertise for diplomatic or other reasons. It should be noted
that in the interests of reducing the number of special funding
initiatives HEFCE has decided to stop the specific funding of
minority subjects after this year, and to provide the additional
money to the universities concerned in their block grants.
5. More generally, to the extent that supply
may be a problem, what are the drivers that may lead universities
to decide to reduce the supply of places in particular subjects?
The first that has been suggested is cash. The HEFCE method of
funding teaching is very blunt and does not differentiate greatly
between subjects in the funding that it provides. HEFCE's method—with
only [four] funding bands to differentiate subjects—is only
sustainable because of the fact that money goes from HEFCE to
institutions as a block grant. On this view, it does not matter
very much how universities receive their money because it is a
zero sum game that is being played—if they received more
for some subjects, they would receive less for others—and
universities are free to allocate the money internally as they
see fit. The problem with this, entirely rational, view is that
it ignores the fact that, to some extent anyway, universities—particularly
when funding is tight—feel obliged to minimise their expenditure
relative to their income. Therefore, the present funding method,
taken together with the autonomy that they have, may induce them
to cut back on subjects that are expensive to provide and to focus
more on subjects that are cheaper to provide and that bring in
similar income. Universities need to be careful. The alternative
is a more directive funding approach by HEFCE, which is what would
be implied by a larger number of funding groups.
6. The second driver that is sometimes mentioned
is selective research funding. In itself, that is unlikely to
be the cause of the closure of departments—there are a large
number of departments of chemistry, for example, which receive
little if any research funds, yet others which do are closing.
However selective funding may play a part: it means that some
universities that generally aspire to be leading research players
may feel that the level of research funding from HEFCE that they
would command in subjects with the lowest RAE scores would be
insufficient to keep those departments in the state to which they
have become accustomed. In this case, closures are driven by institutional
strategies to concentrate on their strengths and not to be active
in areas where they are not strong.
7. So although there are supply-side drivers
that may play a part, they are not dominant, and supply-side action
is unlikely to be effective in resolving the issues that have
led to the decline of the subjects in question. Nevertheless,
even if the fundamental problem, and the answer to the problem,
is not one of supply, that is not to say that there is no supply-side
role for the Government. It is essential that if demand were to
pick up, the infrastructure for meeting the demand should not
have withered away, and should be available to meet that demand.
8. If the primary driver of the difficulties
that in some cases have led to closure are not of supply, but
of student demand, then that leads to rather different approaches
than if the problem was one of supply. Certainly, there have been
shifts in student demand recently, both as far as A-level uptake
is concerned and undergraduate study. Table 1 shows that the number
of A-level students in physics, chemistry and mathematics have
fallen steadily since the mid-1990s (although in Chemistry and
Mathematics numbers may have stabilized in the past year or two).
This decline needs to be seen in the context of an overall 9%
increase in A level entrants in the same period.
9. Because of changes in nomenclature and
definition, it is more difficult to be confident about changes
in the uptake of university places, and the HESA data are not
shown here because they are almost certainly misleading. One would
assume that A level entries will in due course be reflected in
HE enrolment, but a careful study will be needed of the HESA data
to establish if this has been so.
10. It is clear that student demand is dynamic,
and rightly so. Students respond to market signals, and if there
were evidence that employers were crying out for more students
with these qualifications, they would take them at university—unless,
that is, they did not have the prior requirements or intellectual
ability to study them. The subjects that are mentioned as being
under threat are notoriously more "difficult" than many
others. Good evidence about the drivers of student choice is essential
if solutions are to be prescribed. Otherwise we will find we are
prescribing the wrong solutions to misdiagnosed problems.
11. One further fact that needs to be taken
into account in considering the relationship between demand and
supply in the subjects is the extent to which supply has been
maintained through the period of student downturn. It will be
seen from Table 2 below that staff numbers in chemistry, physics
and modern languages have held up remarkably during a time when
student numbers have almost certainly declined sharply. This suggests
that universities have not simply reduced their provision in line
with changes in student demand, but have held on for a while to
satisfy themselves that the changes were not going to be reversed.
And the fact that the age profile of staff in Chemistry and Physics
appears to have been maintained, as is apparent from Table 3,
seems to indicate that staff are still being recruited to these
departments, despite declining student numbers. Moreover, there
is an opportunity cost associated with maintaining provision at
this level in the face of declining demand: other subjects have
less favorable staff:student ratios than they would otherwise
have in order to maintain staffing in the subjects concerned.
12. Whatever the cause of the problems,
there may be a case for taking supply-side action to address the
closure of departments. But if so, the purpose of such action
cannot be simply in order to ensure that the status quo is maintained
in all subjects. The policy aim has to be clear, and it could
be, for example:
(i) That all universities should do all
subjects.
(ii) That across the country as a whole
there should be a sufficiency of provision in all subjects (but
the notion of "sufficiency" would need to be defined).
(iii) That a level of expertise should be
available to meet the nation's needs for specialist information
and advice.
(iv) That all regions should have a minimum
level of capability in all subjects.
(v) That the subjects on which the academic
health of a university more generally depends should be maintained
(though such a rationale, if it exists, is unlikely to be more
felt more acutely outside than inside the university).
13. These are just examples of the sort
of policy aims that might underpin action. But as the actions
may be very different in response to different policy aims it
is essential to be clear about what it is intended to achieve.
14. If it is decided that something should
be done about the supply of places in these and other subjects,
a number of issues arise that need to be addressed.
(i) Who can decide which subjects are the
ones that need attention, and the extent of the attention that
they require?
(ii) Who is to say where they should be
studied?
(iii) How can such decisions be taken? What
are the criteria that can be brought to bear in deciding the subjects
and the extent of attention that they need.
(iv) Who is to say what is the right number
of places is that is required? It could be argued, for example,
that previously too many chemists or modern linguists were produced—who
can say that that is not the case? Is there evidence that industry
is crying out for more? If so, why is the market not working?
Perhaps the answer is to ensure that better market information
is provided. More likely, market dynamics may be working in one
way for some subjects and in a different way for others.
15. In terms of what to do next, if action
is to be taken, then on the supply side any action will need to
have an eye to the drivers that are possibly at work—including
the funding methods and research selectivity, but also institutional
autonomy. It may be that a degree of institutional autonomy will
need to be sacrificed in order to ensure the national interest.
And until supply increases, it needs to be understood that there
is an opportunity cost to be paid in maintaining supply in the
face of falling demand. On the demand side, the obvious answer
might be to identify measures to stimulate demand. However, there
is recent evidence that demand may not be particularly price sensitive,
and if that is so, then any measures to increase demand are unlikely
to be successful unless they take a long-term view. Action is
probably required at school level to stimulate greater demand,
and successful short-term interventions may not be available.
Table 1
|
| 2004
| 2003 | 2002
| 2001 | 2000
| 1999 | 1996
| % change |
|
| Physics | 24,645
| 26,278 | 27,860
| 28,031 | 28,191
| 29,552 | 28,400
| -13.22 |
| Chemistry | 32,151
| 31,065 | 32,324
| 33,871 | 35,290
| 35,831 | 34,677
| -7.28 |
| Mathematics | 51,212
| 49,183 | 48,654
| 59,220 | 58,689
| 61,245 | 59,038
| -13.25 |
|
Table 2
CHANGE IN STAFF NUMBERS—1998-99—2002-03
|
| 1998-99
| 2002-03 | % change
|
|
| Chemistry | 3,612
| 3,520 | -3
|
| Physics | 3,407
| 3,700 | 9
|
| Mathematics | 2,850
| 2,840 | 0
|
French, Spanish & German
modern languages
| 1,406 | 1,585
| 13 |
|
Table 3
STAFF AGE PROFILE IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
|
| 1998-99
| 2002-03 |
| % under 35
| % over 54 | % under 35
| % over 54 |
|
| Chemistry | 27
| 25 | 25
| 21 |
| Physics | 16
| 30 | 16
| 27 |
| All subjects | 19
| 16 | 17
| 20 |
|
| February 2005 |
|
