Some existing UK universities should be closed down while new institutions that are free from excessive regulation should be established to “save” the UK’s higher education sector, two scholars have claimed in a new report.
In a study published by the thinktank Cieo, Lee Jones, reader in international politics at Queen Mary University of London, and Philip Cunliffe, senior lecturer in international conflict at the University of Kent, call for a “fundamental rethink of UK HE”, which they argue was “already in deep trouble well before Covid-19 struck” as a result of over-expansion and marketisation.
The academics say that widening participation has largely involved funnelling poorer students into low-quality institutions, while marketisation has led to wasteful spending, bureaucracy and managerialism.
Dr Jones and Dr Cunliffe say that the UK university sector should be reduced in size, through a mixture of institutional closures, mergers and transformations. This would include the creation of three new kinds of institutions: new technical colleges; “super-universities”, formed by merging weaker institutions with stronger ones; and liberal arts colleges with a teaching focus.
However, they add that merely downsizing the sector while retaining market-style governance would not solve its problems.
The report,?Saving Britain’s Universities: Academic Freedom, Democracy and Renewal, also calls for the creation of four new “free universities”, one for each country in the UK, which would be endowed with independent funding and entirely autonomous from the government.
“Their founding constitutions should commit them to the most wide-ranging pursuit of intellectual freedom, represent the widest possible range of intellectual views, and pursue research excellence for the long-term future, with a liberal ethos of teaching,” it says.
“Faculties and departments should be focused around multi-disciplinary areas identified for future need and putting Britain at the cutting edge of global discovery.”
Dr Jones and Dr Cunliffe add that the new free universities would “spur intellectual renewal within the profession as a whole”.
