Examination of Witnesses (Questions 178
- 179)
MONDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2005
SIR HOWARD
NEWBY AND
MR JOHN
RUSHFORTH
Q178 Chairman: Howard and John, welcome
again; we face each other once more. Thank you for coming. You
have been sitting through the other session so you have a flavour
of the mood we are in! Two of us here are gearing up to talk to
the Prime Minister tomorrow morning in a select committee as well.
You announced a number of measures to help protect struggling
departments recently. How do you square this with the policy of
non-intervention that we have been hearing about in decisions
of individual universities? Is there a contradiction in this whole
process of helping out?
Sir Howard Newby: Can I say, Chairman,
first that it is good to see you looking so fit and well and on
form—and that is not flannelling you, that is a very sincere
comment from me. It is really good to see you. There is a judgment
call here, is there not? Are we prepared to see the provision
of some subjects completely eliminated from this country because
there are absolutely no students who want to be taught it; or
are we going to say we should in some cases at least intervene
in order to preserve national capacity in provision of those subjects
because one never knows of the circumstances in which they will
be needed. Traditionally, the English Funding Council has approached
that by saying, "in some cases we will periodically look
at a list of what we call minority subjects, subjects for which
the demand from students is less than 100 nationally, and we will
take a view on whether we think there is a case in the national
interest to sustain provision of those subjects, even though very
few students want them."
Q179 Chairman: What guides you in
making those decisions? Is it the actual jobs that they are going
to get? You must agree that there is no use educating people unless
there are jobs connected somewhere, either directly with the subject
or indirectly. It seems to be nonsense not to have that kind of
analysis.
Sir Howard Newby: So far that
has not been the case, no. The subjects we have supported through
our minority subjects programme—the argument really has
been one of maintaining strategic capacity nationally. Even if
there were no students who wanted to learn them, and even if they
were not getting jobs afterwards, we still feel in the long run
there is a case for sustaining in this country some capacity.
The vast majority of these subjects are what we call exotic languages,
although they do include some science and technology subjects—paper-making
technology for example, and shoe and leather technology have been
two in particular, where we simply felt that it is in the national
interest to take a long-term view and sustain capacity, even in
the absence of student demand.
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