The recent guidance issued through Education Secretary Gillian Keegan to the Office of Students shows contradictory priorities within government and fuels fires in a higher education sector that is already suffering.
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), “expensive and strategically vital subjects”, is hampered by the freeze on investment in arts subjects such as music, fashion and theatre at the university level.
This amounts to genuine relief from inflation, and there are cuts to scholarships for postgraduate studies, as well as the Broadening Participation Programme for access to higher education for academics from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The move follows an earlier stretch of budget cuts in 2021 and comes at a time when universities in general — and the arts and humanities in general — are struggling. Inflation has added to the burden being felt across the sector, highlighting long-term tensions as the university’s investment style begins to crumble.
In short, the cost of a student’s schooling has outstripped tuition fees, with no immediate prospect of increasing them, at least because they already leave graduates with large debts. This scenario is compounded by the decline in the number of bachelor’s degrees in arts and humanities. , making recruitment difficult. The inevitable result is a reduction in profits.
Oxford Brookes and Kent universities have announced the closure of their music departments, while layoffs at Goldsmiths may threaten up to a portion of jobs in the departments of English and art writing, history, music, theatre and acting, and visual cultures.
A False Economy
The obvious logic of supporting the hard sciences and economics in general shows contradictions in the government’s stated methods and masks a false economy. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) Creative Sector Vision, for example, states that: “The arts sector industries are a veritable story of British good fortune, from global music stars such as Adele and Ed Sheeran to world-class cultural establishments such as the National Theatre. “
It also highlights, crucially, the importance of skills “for the sector to attract and expand the most productive artistic talent. . . from all walks of life and from all regions of the country. “
Even an intransigent economic attitude suggests that the arts sector offers merit rather than a freeze. According to the government’s own estimates, the arts industries contribute around £126 billion to the UK economy. That’s more than the automotive industry, for example, or aerospace, oil and gas.
While it is evident that much of the capabilities will be done in spaces such as coding, the contribution still includes around £27 billion in music, visual and acting arts, publishing, design, fashion, museums and galleries.
The provision of higher arts education also adds a wider price tag to the country’s cultural life and school framework for school-age children, as recognized, once again, by the government. The National Music Education Plan, for example, notes that universities “provide live musical performances. . . through single tickets to concerts held on site or by bringing student artists to schools. . . providing reciprocal benefits, as students derive invaluable pleasure from running with young audiences, and school-age students are encouraged through musicians. close to his age. “
Value and clinical exchanges.
The contradictions also go beyond the artistic sector and the education courses directly affected. The funding cuts seem difficult to understand the total cost that art courses bring to the higher education sector (in themselves they are worth £71 billion in gross value added to the economy).
Universities don’t work in silos, separating the arts and STEM. They are on each other’s toes financially, with cross-subsidies between the cheapest to award degrees and the most expensive ones (including subjects such as engineering).
In research, too, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the humanities and sciences benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration, especially in the evolving arts sector, where technological knowledge, critical thinking, and imaginative technique combine with each other. beneficial.
This zero-sum for the arts and STEM in higher education also undermines the holistic, Humboldtian style of the university in which a combination of studies and training in the arts and sciences generates knowledge, value, and engaged citizenship. This has long been in the centro. de the strength and outward appeal of British universities.
DCMS’s Creative Sector Vision highlights the debate between interdisciplinary research, business and the wider public sector, stating that “government and industry have demonstrated how we can harness public funding, the UK’s world-leading education base and the ingenuity of the arts sector”. “.
Tough times make decision-making difficult, especially when figures show variations in earnings among graduates in other subjects. But comparing opposing titles to others and breaking them down into those that are “useful” is a technique that deploys quick tactics at the expense of a long-term strategy.
If cuts in investment degrade the source of artistic materials, the effects will be felt beyond the disintegrators involved. The arts underpin the arts industries, and universities are components of a broader ecosystem of research, development, and education than even government itself. In other words, it relies on exchanges between the arts and sciences to create prices at all levels.
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