Higher Education: EUC Report

Lord Parekh Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, for introducing this report. I welcome the report of the EU Committee on higher education with two minor reservations. First, it talks about modernisation of higher education. Whenever I have come across the word “modernisation” as a social scientist, I have found it to be loaded and rather disturbing. It is disturbing because it seems to imply that if you do not go along with it you are reactionary, archaic—a backwoodsman. It is also unacceptable because it seems to imply that no argument is needed on behalf of it. Simply to say that something is modern is ipso facto to suggest that you should go along with it. I am pretty sure that we can find a less loaded, more satisfactory way of describing the content of the report.

My second reservation has to do with the fact that when the report talks about modernisation of higher education it does so in the language of economic growth. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, talked about higher education being in the interests of economic growth. While I can understand why this is so important in general as well as in the context of today, we need to bear in mind that every time we talk about economic growth we instinctively think of science and technology and have a tendency to underemphasise the role of the arts, the social sciences and the humanities. When we talk about co-ordination across various European countries we are not simply thinking in terms of economic growth. We are also thinking—imaginatively, boldly—in terms of a common elite, an elite which shares a common intellectual, educational and cultural background. Unless that kind of elite is created by moving between different universities, we simply will not be able to make a success of the European project.

Having got that out of the way—in a rather boring, academic way—I turn to the more positive task of endorsing the report, especially its three major imaginative proposals. The report rightly addresses the question of the lack of mobility among British students. This is being addressed but not as effectively and extensively as one would like. UK mobility under the Erasmus programme in 2000 and 2001 was 9,000 students. Today it is 12,873, so things have moved on, but that is as nothing compared with other European countries. I shall not talk about our rivals and competitors because one should not use that language in the context of the European Union. In Germany, however, 28,000 students are taking advantage of the Erasmus programme, and in France the figure is 32,000.

It is also striking that mobility is considerably limited, not only compared to other European countries, but in terms of its depth as regards social class, race and gender. White students, for example, represent 75% of those who move across European countries. For Afro-Caribbeans, however, the figure is 0.4% out of a total student population of 1.27%. Pakistani students’ mobility is only 0.3%, although they represent 2.42% of the student population. As regards class background, it is striking that the mobility of students from higher managerial and professional backgrounds is 22.4%, but for those from lower managerial and technocratic occupational backgrounds, the figure is only 2.4%. It is striking that mobility is limited in terms of the groups of people who travel.

The advantages of mobility do not need to be emphasised here. We know that people who travel across cultures and different regions gain in experience, maturity, communication skills, greater cultural awareness and greater employment prospects. The obvious question to ask is: why are British students not taking advantage of mobility? Are they dumb? Do they not realise the way that the world is moving? Rather than blame them or language provision, I want to look a little deeper.

Why does one learn a language? How do you do so with confidence such that you are able to follow courses in that language at undergraduate level in a foreign country? When the Dutch and the Germans learn English—although the French are slightly weaker at it—they do so for at least five-and-a-half to six years and for about six periods a fortnight. If we want our students to learn French with an equivalent degree of competence, language will have to be taught in that manner. It is also worth bearing in mind that a lot of English is picked up by the French, Germans and others through television programmes and films. That kind of facility is not easily available for our students who might wish to learn French or German. What TV programmes are they going to watch in order to pick up those languages informally?

We need to pay far more attention to why people seem to be resistant to learning languages when we know that they calculate their own long-term interests and know that it would be to their advantage. Obviously we need a national strategy. We need to make sure that languages are available at primary and secondary schools, although they cannot be enforced or imposed. We also need to bear in mind that a large number of people do not move across linguistic barriers, largely for financial and other reasons. We therefore need to consider the various schemes to which the report rightly draws our attention. Grants and loans should be portable. There should be fee-waiver schemes, and those we have should be extended. It is difficult for people to go abroad to spend a semester there. We could therefore think in terms of substitutes, work placements or internships for shorter periods. We could also think in terms of vacation courses on which one could earn and learn, as lots of students do when they go to the United States. Better advice could be offered to students on the UCCA form when they apply for university, as well as by the universities themselves.

It is amazing how certain impressions are created. It is important to bear in mind that the international league tables create an impression to which the report unwittingly adds its weight. Of the top 50 universities in the world, many are in the United States but only three from Europe. All three happen to be in Britain and the implication is that the universities in France and Germany are not as good as ours. That is simply not true because you are not comparing like with like. In Germany, universities are not the centres of much of the research; much of it takes place in the Max Planck Institutes, and these are not taken into account in the world rankings. Similarly, there are great research institutes in France.

Therefore, it is important to bear in mind that our students may get the wrong impression. From my experience as a university professor, I know that many do, thinking that the Sorbonne, Heidelberg, Bonn or Berlin are not as good as, say, Hull or Exeter. That is ridiculous, yet that impression is created by suggesting that none of the European universities emerges among the top 50. It also partly explains why students do not readily move across linguistic barriers.

I turn to the second proposal in the report, which I endorse—the European research area. It is absolutely right that we should think of promoting the EU as a very desirable study and research destination. It is also striking that grand research projects and challenges are best undertaken through cross-border partnerships, and our Government need to be fully engaged. It is certainly worth bearing in mind, as some of my colleagues said earlier, that EU universities can easily sell themselves outside the EU—for example, in the United States, as well as in other parts of the world—by offering unique combinations of degrees and courses. The London School of Economics and Imperial College do not have to sell themselves in any way but, for example, Manchester or Hull, jointly with Heidelberg or the Sorbonne, could offer a degree in social sciences, economics or whatever. Students abroad, including those in the United States, would be enormously attracted by the prospect of spending two or two and a half years in Britain and half a year or a year in France or Germany. I think that we should take full advantage of the EU proposal for a European research area.

The third proposal concerns a common master’s degree. That is obviously not easy. In this country it takes one year; in Europe it tends to take two years. It is not generally a good idea to insist on uniformity but it is important that postgraduate education is encouraged. It is striking that in Britain we have seen only a 14% rise in postgraduate education in the past five years compared with 69% in the rest of Europe and 155% in non-European countries. While encouraging postgraduate education, we should also think of postgraduate research degrees, including master’s degrees, being undertaken collaboratively between various universities in Europe. For that to be possible, financial support will have to be available, especially in the arts, humanities and social sciences, where scholarships are not readily available. National support schemes should be portable and not limited merely to the countries that provide them, and there should be greater facilities to secure loans for postgraduate students.

Once we begin to think along those lines, we will begin to find a flow of students at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and when that begins to happen not only will our universities become more attractive but we will contribute towards creating a common intellectual and political elite that is capable of carrying forward the great European project.