Examination of Witnesses (Questions 360
- 368)
WEDNESDAY 2 MARCH 2005
PROFESSOR BOB
BOUCHER, DR
SIMON CAMPBELL,
PROFESSOR PETER
MAIN, PROFESSOR
SIR TOM
BLUNDELL AND
PROFESSOR AMANDA
CHETWYND
Q360 Dr Iddon: Why should we do that?
If students want to study medicine or any other subject, why should
we not let them? That seems to be the philosophy. Why do we have
to cap medicine?
Professor Boucher: You have to
ask those who fund it because we do not cap medicine, we are formally
capped.
Q361 Chairman: They say it is you
who make the decisions.
Professor Boucher: No, not in
medicine. That is certainly not the case.
Q362 Chairman: That is true of medicine
but we are looking at science.
Professor Boucher: The point is
the point that we came to earlier, that restricting student choice
to study other subjects is not necessarily going to drive them
into subjects which they are not motivated to study. So, you come
back to the issue of first of all maintaining the system, keeping
stability—I think that is the very first, stability—and
the second one is the problem in the schools, it is a problem
with the supply of educated students with an appropriate grounding
in the sciences who are motivated to study the sciences and that
does not appear to be happening at the moment.
Q363 Dr Iddon: Do vice chancellors
not make their strategic decisions based on where the funding
is available? In other words, if loads of students want to do
forensic science, the universities shift in that direction. There
does not seem to be any sensible strategic planning, if I may
say so, with the national interest in mind.
Professor Chetwynd: They are planning
locally; they have a strategic local plan. I do not think you
can expect universities to have a global plan. The Government
should set that.
Professor Main: If you are asking
the question, should we have a national science strategy, I would
answer very firmly, "Yes, we should." What is happening
in universities is that the vice chancellors are responding to
the economic environment which has been created by the Government.
The economic environment that we have at the moment is that everything
is being driven by student choice and student choice, for whatever
reason, is moving into what I would call softer subjects, subjects
that do not require specific A levels at entry, and subjects,
as it appears to be the case, which do not have good employment
prospects. That type of environment, which is a direct result,
I believe, of recent Government policy, is the one in which vice
chancellors have to operate. They do have a certain amount of
autonomy. The sort of capping you are talking about, I agree with
Bob entirely, is in subjects where there is high demand and subjects
which are also very vocational. Of course, in the case of doctors,
you have essentially one very large employer of doctors and you
can predict very easily how many graduates you need. It is not
so easy in science and engineering to do that and often we are
producing graduates for where we will be in ten years' time and
it is very difficult to predict that.
Dr Campbell: I just want to come
back to the point Brian raised about university autonomy. Let
us go back to Exeter again. The vice chancellor decided to close
chemistry. I understand that Lord Sainsbury had no prior notice
and Sir David King had no prior notice and they and HEFCE were
not able to influence that decision. I would say that is university
autonomy but not being exercised in a way that I would like to
see it exercised.
Chairman: They could cut the money off
next year.
Q364 Dr Harris: My last question
is, if we really want to build a good reservoir—and I emphasise
this—of good quality SET undergraduates, do we think we
should give them incentives like financial incentives, a grant
for example, to encourage them to do the subject, whatever the
subject is in SET?
Professor Chetwynd: I think we
have to do that certainly initially because we must get better
teachers into the schools, well-qualified science teachers into
the schools. We have to do something to attract the students to
study the subjects in schools.
Professor Boucher: I think one
would not say "no" to almost anything that would help
at the margins in the current crisis.
Q365 Chairman: Tom, you have been
salivating there! I can see you are itching to say it.
Professor Sir Tom Blundell: I
think at the postgraduate level maybe we are just seeing a model
now. I look back a year or so ago and saw almost no change in
response to the increasing stipends. This year, it has changed
radically. We have a very large number of students coming through
at postgraduate level, much more healthy. I would have thought
that if we do something like that at the undergraduate level as
well, we might hope to—
Q366 Chairman: Are there figures
on that, Tom, or is it just your feeling?
Professor Sir Tom Blundell: I
think it is too early to get figures. I am just telling you what
has happened in my department and my school. We are hugely oversubscribed
this year and I find it extremely encouraging.
Q367 Dr Harris: Could it be that
higher levels of debt, which are going to happen now obviously,
might actually negate the impact that raised stipends are having
because you are back to square one?
Professor Sir Tom Blundell: I
was presented with all these kinds of arguments. Just recently
I have actually seen a turn round, so I am now optimistic that
that fraction with the higher stipend—
Q368 Dr Harris: There is bound to
be more debt because top-up debt has not yet been imposed and
you are aware that is going to come down the line?
Professor Sir Tom Blundell: Yes.
Chairman: I think it is probably a good
point to end that with a little optimism shining through. Thankyou
very much. We will be meeting the sages, the vice chancellors,
next week, Bob and some others, and we will look forward to their
vision and what they are going to do about it and how they see
their miserable lives or optimistic lives! Thank you very much.
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