Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
MONDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2005
DANIELLE MILES,
IAN HUTTON,
AMY HUNTINGTON
AND STEPHEN
ROWLEY
Q40 Dr Iddon: If when you were applying
to go to university, because it is more expensive to teach science
subjects and engineering subjects, if the universities charged
more to teach those subjects would you have been put off or would
you have just pursued what you were interested in?
Ms Miles: I think personally it
might have slightly deterred me, just the fact I might have thought,
"I am not sure," but if Exeter University had said to
me, "Unfortunately we have some financial problems, we need
to charge a bit more this year, maybe we need to charge you for
things like photocopying and things like that, do you mind, otherwise
basically you are not going to be able to finish your degree here,"
I definitely would have done anything to pay that money and to
stay there. Also, you have to think about the amount of money
that you will earn at the end of it as an incentive, if you can
get that degree.
Q41 Dr Iddon: Let us bring in Stephen?
Mr Rowley: Yes, I think I would
have been influenced by that. I might have been less likely to
do it.
Q42 Dr Iddon: It would have put you
off studying—is it engineering?
Mr Rowley: Civil engineering,
yes.
Q43 Dr Iddon: Amy, you were desperate
to get to NUT?
Ms Huntington: It depends, if
the universities are charging more, where are you going to get
that money from? Would I have been put off? If I had the money,
possibly no; but if there is no means of getting that money, if
there are no loans or whatever, then maybe I would have thought
twice. The debt coming out of my degree now is scary enough, never
mind if it was three times as much.
Mr Hutton: I would have tried
to have met the costs as best I could, I guess, but if I could
not meet them then I would have to . . .
Q44 Chairman: Do you have to work
now when you are at university? Which bar are you running?
Mr Hutton: I tend to work in the
holidays so that I have free time when I am up at uni to concentrate
on my studies really.
Q45 Dr Iddon: If somebody provided
an incentive for you to study physics, chemistry, engineering
subjects, would that appeal to people, do you think?
Ms Miles: I think it would appeal
to people but I think you would get the wrong people on the courses.
I think you would get more of the people that would be thinking,
"I want to go to university", for the wrong reasons,
to party, relax, whatever. If you were talking about money, if
you were giving them money to do it, it is an incentive to think,
"I will do chemistry," or whatever science, "I
do not really want to go into a career of it but it is a good
degree to have to do," whatever, "plus I will get money
so I will get less in debt, I will just do it anyway," you
might end up not having as many researchers and people going into
the fields that they have studied in, and more people just going
into IT with good degrees and things like that.
Q46 Dr Iddon: Stephen?
Mr Rowley: I agree with that,
but I cannot really answer that because I did it anyway.
Q47 Dr Iddon: Ian and Amy, if somebody
gave you incentives would that appeal? Would you have been switched
off your subject if there had been more money available in another
subject for you?
Mr Hutton: No, not really. I have
always wanted to do biology; that is what I wanted to do so I
would have done it anyway.
Q48 Dr Iddon: So if there are shortage
subjects, as there are at the moment—languages is going
the same way, quite frankly, as some of the hard sciences are
going, but industry keeps telling us that there are shortages
of certainly good quality people from the hard sciences—do
you think the government should intervene in any way to attract
people into shortage subjects?
Ms Miles: Yes, personally.
Q49 Dr Iddon: How should they intervene,
do you think?
Ms Miles: I think there should
be more control over closures. Maybe, say, if a school were to
decide it was going to shut down its chemistry or biology department
I am pretty sure that maybe the government could step in and say,
"You cannot do that," because of the National Curriculum
and everything. As far as I can see there is not really much point
in having chemistry in schools if you cannot go on to do a degree
at it because the less departments there are the less chance there
is of getting anyone to do it and there are less people that are
going to do it. So it is a vicious circle.
Q50 Dr Iddon: The university Vice-Chancellors
are saying to us and their staff are saying to us as well, "You
cannot touch us, we are independent."
Ms Miles: But they cannot be really
because they have to look at the fact that the people paying for
it are taxpayers and the like, and also we are all customers of
the university; we pay to be there and we pay quite a lot to be
there and they should respect what we want. I am not sure about
everyone else's departments, but our department was up by 27%
on admissions this year and they are saying they are not getting
enough people in, but that is quite a large increase in this year.
They just do not seem to be listening to what people want.
Q51 Dr Iddon: Do the other three
have a view on whether the government should intervene, perhaps
by providing incentives to study shortage subjects? Stephen?
Mr Rowley: I think perhaps, but
I would not know exactly how.
Mr Hutton: I think you would have
to be very careful about what incentives you offered because it
is not just taking the places as a blank spot and trying to put
people in them, you need the right kind of people to fill those
places and careful consideration would need to be given as to
why those places are not being filled by the people you want them
to be filled by and to try to get an incentive towards filling
them with the right kind of person. I think that is the issue
more than just incentives to fill the places.
Q52 Dr Iddon: What role do you think
industry and commerce has in all this? Any?
Mr Hutton: Yes, I do to a certain
extent. You can change obviously what you want to do but I guess
when I was thinking about going to university I was thinking that
I am going to get a job or a career within the field of biology
somewhere along the line, and I guess if there was more of a drive
to make it known what you could do with a degree in biology and
the careers that those places could take you, all those qualifications
could take you, then younger people might be more enthused to
go into those subjects if they were made aware at a younger age.
Q53 Dr Iddon: Amy?
Ms Huntington: I think industry
does have kind of a say in this. I presume they accept that it
is going to be losing out on graduates filling roles, so certain
companies are going to find that they do not have people to employ.
Q54 Dr Iddon: They are recruiting
in France, you see; why should they care about the British university
system? My daughter is recruiting abroad for a big company—she
is in human Resources.
Ms Miles: That is where the government
should get involved and that is why they should be worried that
even the people that are still getting through with their degrees
might not be getting recruited, and they should be worried about
the fact that people like us should be able to get what we want
and the jobs that we want if we are prepared to put in the time
and the effort and get the education. By stopping us from doing
that it is causing more problems for themselves.
Q55 Chairman: When you are talking
about incentives and you are talking to your mates at university
and all that sort of thing, what do they say about bursaries and
remission of fees and bigger maintenance grants? When you are
having a serious conversation about it how do you think it could
work, for incentives?
Ms Miles: I think maybe if there
were more sponsorship type things, so if people were getting the
grades and you had to get to a certain level and you would get
more money, that might put the right people in the right place
and it would give them more of an incentive to be there, because
you would have to be of a certain mind to be working hard to get
those grades, and then if you were to get the money as a reward
it would push us to it a bit more and might help more people who
cannot afford to do it.
Q56 Chairman: Ian, what do you think,
and Stephen and Amy?
Mr Hutton: That sounds like a
reasonable idea.
Mr Rowley: I agree.
Q57 Chairman: So do you worry about
the next generation of students coming through? Do you think they
are going to be put off or be put on subjects? How do you feel
about it? Have you escaped the atrocity of top-up fees?
Mr Hutton: It almost seems to
me like it is going to go over towards the American system, where
parents will have to start saving from a child's early age if
they are thinking of them going to university.
Q58 Chairman: You mean at the zygote
stage!
Mr Hutton: Just put money aside
from earlier on. I think that is the way that it appears to be
moving but the public perception has not completely caught on
with that yet. But I think that is how it will be in future generations.
Q59 Chairman: Has anybody else got
a view about this, the next generation? I know you are caught
up in getting through yourselves and you do not look over your
shoulder much at your age, but you must sometimes think about
it? You must have younger brothers, sisters, or whatever, who
want to do similar kinds of science subjects.
Ms Miles: I think it is worrying
because I am having to look at another university to transfer
to now and to finish my degree, and not only am I myself worried
about finding a good university with a good chemistry course,
where I would fit in, where I could do the work and where I have
got the qualifications to get on, I have also got the added worry
of is it going to close down now? If people are worrying about
that as well they are going to be looking at universities in a
different light and be worrying about them closing down, and if
you are slightly concerned that it might get closed down that
will deter people even more. They need to be assured that their
universities are going to be safe. When I started I had no idea
that this sort of thing happens, that degrees just got cut off
and that was it; I was not even concerned about it. I think now
it is starting to hit the papers a bit more and it is making a
bit more of an impact people are going to be worried about doing
science degrees because in fact they might close down.
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