Memorandum 13
Submission from the Council of University
Classical Departments
SUMMARY:
CUCD argues that removing funding from ELQs
(a) misunderstands the nature of an education in a particular
discipline; (b) overlooks the role of fellow students in enhancing
educational experience; (c) is financial misguided.
1. I write on behalf of the Council of University
Classical Departments
2. We wish to offer three arguments to show
that the decision to withdraw HEFCE funding from those doing ELQs
is misguided.
3. (a) Students read for degree courses
in a very wide range of subjects. Those degree courses offer very
particular training, not simply in terms of the data which their
students handle but more particularly in the types of intellectual
skills which are required to handle those data. Those doing degrees
in English acquire skills in textual analysis quite different
from the skills of textual analysis given by a degree in Philosophy
or History. Some degrees, and Classics would be one of these,
aim to provide a wide range of analytical skills—literary,
philosophical, historical, visual. But while Classics graduates
should be better placed to develop further their skills in any
of these areas, they will not have such highly developed philosophical
skills as those who have read a degree in Philosophy or such highly
developed historical skills as those who read a degree in History.
4. All graduates find that in their careers
after graduation they require skills and knowledge in addition
to those primarily developed by their university first degree.
In some cases these further skills and knowledge are provided
by courses organised by their employer or can be acquired by independent
study. But for many the most efficient and effective way of acquiring
further skills and knowledge is to embark upon a further degree
course, which has been designed to develop those skills. Such
training can of course be either a "postgraduate" course
or a second first degree, and it is foolish to apply differential
criteria for funding, if one is serious about the importance of
developing such skills and knowledge. Not to support such attempts
by graduates the better to equip themselves for the wide ranging
demands of their employment is to foster a workforce deficient
in the skills and knowledge base required for effective and competitive
operation. It makes a nonsense of the notion of lifelong learning
on which there has rightly been much governmental emphasis. We
can point to particular examples of students who have taken ELQ
Classics degrees and proceeded to doctoral work thereafter and
in at least one case (Dr Janett Morgan, RHUL) to a University
Lectureship.
5. (b) Students learn as much from each
other as they learn from their teachers. The performance of a
whole cohort of students can be transformed if they engage with
one another in discussions of their academic work, and not simply
engage, for the duration of lecture or class with one another.
Those who already have study skills play a very large part in
training those without with whom they have contact, and the enthusiasm
of ELQ students, who are highly motivated, is infectious, bringing
out the best in their teachers as well as in fellow learners.
6. (c) The claim that it costs more
to educate people for a second degree is simplistic. It only costs
more if those who receive second degrees at an equal or lower
level do not go on to enhance their salaries, and hence their
tax payments. For the financial argument to fly it needs to be
shown that those with second degrees of this sort fail, through
subsequent higher earnings, to pay back the cost of those degrees.
December 2007
| 
