Geoffrey Alderman

The birth of the market place in English higher education

Taylor and Francis PSP_A_575187. gm 10.1080/13603108.2011.575187 Perspectives 360-3108 (pri t)/1460-7018 (online) Articl 2 11 & Francis 0 0 002011 Mr DavidPalf eyman sophi .lop z-welsch@new.ox.ac.uk Last October Lord Browne of Madingley published the long-awaited report of his Independent Review into Higher Education Funding and Student Finance (Independent Review 2010). Browne and his colleagues recommended the removal of the ‘cap’ on the tuition fees chargeable for first degrees by taxpayer-funded universities in England. This cap, imposed by the Higher Education Act of 2004 (the relevant provisions of which came into effect two years later), is currently set at £3,290 pa. Browne argued for its complete elimination, thus permitting universities to charge, in theory, whatever the market might bear for any particular degree programme. But he added the caveat that if they charged more than £6,000 pa there should be a ‘tapered’ levy – in effect a tax – imposed by the government, the proceeds being applied to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Additionally, Browne urged that institutions wishing to charge above £6,000 be obliged to demonstrate improved standards of teaching and ‘fair admission’ – whatever that might mean. In response, the present Coalition government has now obtained parliamentary approval for a policy that will (with effect from September 2012) permit publicly funded universities to charge up to – but not more than – £9,000 pa; but if they want to charge more than £6,000 they will have to agree to a raft of measures including offering bursaries, summer schools and ‘outreach’ programmes, so as to promote applications from students from poorer backgrounds. To this end universities will apparently be obliged to continue to enter into ‘access agreements’ with the Office for Fair Access (as they have since 2006 so as to charge the current £3,290 fee); if this Office determines that an agreement has been broken, it will have the power to impose a fine, the proceeds of which will be redirected – it is said – to support disadvantaged students. But Higher Education Minister David Willetts, in announcing this new fees regime, added that high teaching costs might also justify a fee above £6,000, as might the willingness to offer two-year Bachelor’s degrees (http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11483638 [accessed 17 November 2010]). It is not our purpose in this note to enter into the highly charged debate about the principle of permitting taxpayer-funded universities to charge university students fees for first degrees, never mind whether the fees are charged in arrears (as is presently proposed) or ‘up front’ (as is the case in many other countries, including the USA). Nor do we wish, here, to contribute to the equally highly charged Professor Geoffrey Alderman teaches History and Politics at the University of Buckingham. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies and Michael Gross Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at the University of Buckingham. Address for correspondence: School of Humanities, The University of Buckingham, Hunter Street, Buckingham, MK18 1EG, UK. Email: geoffrey.alderman@buckin gham.ac.uk

Reflections: Change, Quality and Standards in British Higher Education

Since the end of the Second World War higher education in the United Kingdom has experienced profound modification, as it has moved from an elite to a mass system. Whilst many of the ensuing changes have been for the better, some have resulted in a poorer system, that serves less well both faculty and students. In particular, and as a result of political motives emanating from successive governments, the emphasis of the UK academy has been forced away from teaching towards research. At the same time, a league table culture has swept the sector, with extremely negative results in terms of both quality and standards. The imposition of these changes has, however, been aided and abetted from within the sector itself, as self-regulation by the academy has been replaced by a frankly managerialist agenda embraced by university senior executives.

The Burton Book

In the summer of 2001 a major controversy erupted following a Jewish Chronicle report (18 May 2001) that the Honorary Officers and Executive Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews had decided to offer for sale, at Messrs Christies auction rooms in London, a hitherto unpublished work by the nineteenth-century explorer, writer and diplomat Sir Richard Francis Burton. In the event, and in the glare of worldwide media attention, the reserve price of ?150,000 was not reached (6 June 2001).1 The lot one of the very rew Burton manuscripts still in private hands ? was therefore withdrawn and returned, amidst yet further controversy, to the safe-keeping of the Board. In this article we trace the history of this work from its creation in the early 1870s, and offer some thoughts on its contemporary significance. We do not propose here to dwell at length on Burtons colourful, controversial, and n Victorian terms, scandalous life, a public image that may even, it has been suggested, ha /e led Bram Stoker to model Dracula upon him.2 Born in Torquay, Devon, in 1821, Burton taught himself Arabic whilst at Oxford and his extraordinary natural gift for languages made him an accomplished speaker of other eastern tongues, including Hindustani, Gujarati and Persian. In 1853 he famously journeyed to Mecca in the guise of a pilgrim, risking bis life because at that time Christians who entered the Holy City customarily faced execution. Three years later he and John Hanning Speke explored central Africa under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society; Speke discovered Lake Victoria but it was Burton who received the Societys Gold Medal. The two explorers subsequently became bitter enemies. Following Burtons marriage (1861) to Isabel Arundell, ten years his junior and the daughte r of a distinguished Catholic family, he yearned for a diplomatic career perhaps Her Majesty s Ambassador in Constantinople but obtained only inferior posts with the Consular Service In December 1868 Burton was fortunate enough to be appointed British Consul ir Damascus. But in August 1871 he was summarily recalled following complaints from tre British Consul General in Beirut, the Ottoman Governor of Syria, and the Sultan himself about his attitude to Muslims, his many indiscretions and his general waywardness and unreliability. He was posted instead to Trieste, which became his base for the rest of his life,

Turbulent Times: the British Jewish community today

As Nocke manouevres through the articulations and manifestations of the Mediterranean in Israeli literature, music and architecture, it often seems that Israelis are playing with cultural options, examining samples from different global contexts, perhaps as an answer to not having their own definite cultural backbone, and holding an ambivalent relation towards the Jewish one. An interesting question is at what point the use of Mediterranean images stops being merely a citation and starts becoming the core content of Israeli identity itself. In her exhaustive and profound study Nocke cautiously and rightly leaves this query open, and this should become one of the important identity questions for the Israeli future.