Higher Education: EUC Report

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens]

My Lords, I phoned up the Government Whips’ Office this morning to find out how much time we had to speak in the debate. I was told that we had five minutes each, so I scrubbed out most of my speech. Noble Lords will be pleased to know that I cannot read what is underneath the scrubbed-out bits, so my speech will be a bit shorter than some that have just been given.

Europe is in the throes of an existential crisis. The status quo is not an option. Either there will have to be profound reorganisation in the direction of much greater integration with political and economic unity, or the alternative is disintegration, at least of the core structures of the European Union. No one in their right mind would want the second of these alternatives. The first, if successful, will change everything. Europe will look very different after the next five or six years and the theorem of changing everything will apply to higher education as much as to other areas.

It is interesting to look back at the Bologna declaration of June 1999. My noble friend Lady Blackstone was present and obviously had a strong impact on what emerged, and she is a signatory to the document. The Bologna declaration was made against a totally different background in Europe from the one we have today. Its point of origin was enlargement and the transfer of the Union into eastern Europe. The document was highly optimistic about what it called the “extraordinary achievements” of the preceding few years in Europe. That was a more or less completely different moral tone from today. I do not know whether it is a phrase of my noble friend—probably not, from what she said—but it aimed at creating a “Europe of knowledge” as a means of promoting social and economic welfare. Are those objectives still relevant in a Europe that is teetering on the edge of crisis and which is bound to have fundamental structural reform? You bet they are; the argument could be made that they are even more relevant. In 1999, further integration looked to be evolutionary in nature and long term. Now it has to be much more sudden and radical. Higher education is crucial because it straddles areas relevant to growth and job creation, research and innovation and the enrichment of European civic consciousness.

The report cautiously and gently suggests investing more money in some areas of the Bologna process. In this situation, I am not sure whether we should be modest about it, because certainly in terms of the EU itself, the whole EU budget will have to be reappraised and undoubtedly will be over the next few years as part of the process of building a more integrated continent. So I do not think it is right to take a modest “give us a little bit more money” approach because a lot that is much more fundamental is going on.

I agree with almost all the findings and recommendations of the report, although I think it could have been much more adventurous and directed towards the current crisis. It seems to be an opportunity rather than a problem. At the moment there are two Europes. There is what can be called “paper Europe”, a Europe of endless plans, documents and declarations that mostly remain plans on paper, and there is the real Europe, in turmoil and looking for new modes of growth. It will have to become much more competitive than in the past because it has fallen behind other areas of the world. It is obvious that higher education is crucial to that. We do not want a set of paper conclusions; we want some more substantive ones.

I want to make a few brief comments in conclusion. First, I fully endorse the contribution of the Erasmus programme to the traits mentioned on page 32. They are similar to what the noble Baroness talked about: character development, building confidence, increased cultural awareness and enhanced employability. Those who are pro-Europe, as I am, will be looking to create a pan-European younger generation for a much more integrated and competitive Europe because, if we are going to be competitive, we will have to have a lot more labour mobility.

Secondly, as I know from my experience as director of the London School of Economics, which gave a lot of attention to these issues, many problems remain in finding a balance between standardisation and diversity. For example, if you look at careers structures, it is relatively easy for students and researchers from other EU countries to get on an academic career track in the UK but the reverse is much more difficult. French or Italian universities are much more closed to the outside than our universities are. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that if she has time.

Thirdly, and finally, the problems noted on pages 37 to 40 of the report are very real. In my experience, virtually all Erasmus students who came to the LSE and to Cambridge, where I used to teach, were high achievers and came from more affluent families. I very much agree that there should be programmes in place to counter this tendency, and again would welcome the comments of the Minister.