There has been growing opposition to Peter Mandelson’s plans to slash funding for universities. In a letter to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) late in December, Mandelson, himself a beneficiary of a free Oxford education, announced cuts totalling £398 million. Earlier in the year Mandelson told universities that they would have to find savings of £180 million in their budgets. The result of this has been savage cuts across the industry. Universities such as Sussex, Kings, Leeds and Wolverhampton have announced hundreds of redundancies and decimated course programmes.
The government has insisted that these cutbacks should not affect the quality of education in the UK, but a recent survey suggests a possible ‘brain drain’ if the plans were introduced. Over a third (35%) of professors polled said they would consider pursuing their academic career abroad if the cutbacks go ahead an over two-thirds (69%) say they opposed the cuts.
In December the University and College Union (UCU) handed in a petition objecting to the planned cutbacks with almost 18,000 signatures that came from the full range of academic disciplines and included six Nobel Prize winners and over 3,000 professors.
Student opposition to the cutbacks is increasing with campaigns in Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, Staffordshire, Newcastle, Cambridge, Manchester Met, Sussex, London Met and elsewhere heating up. In November students at London College of Communications (LCC) occupied their university in protest at the cuts. Student anarchists are currently organising themselves in the Autonomous Students Network (see autonomous-students.net).
Meanwhile, the British Chambers of Commerce’s (BCC) warn that workers can expect to endure another tough year in 2010. Their latest Monthly Business Survey reveals that 63% of businesses are planning wage freezes or pay cuts next year, while 18% are considering the removal of benefits, such as bonuses and gym membership. Despite hopes that the end of the recession may have arrived in the final quarter of 2009, employers plan on persistently squeezing the employee pay packet in 2010.
A very fragile recovery was highlighted in the BCC survey, as a majority of firms (67%) stated that they would operate at the same or reduced capacity levels in the first quarter of 2010.
The Bank of England’s regional agents also noted that firms up and down the country had relatively few plans to employ more workers. Apparently, a number of companies are to let headcount drift down by not replacing staff that leave. This will be especially bad news for students who graduate later this year as they will have great difficulty finding work.
Richard Lambert Director-General of the Confederation of British Industries (CBI), the UK’s top business lobby organisation, has called on the government to deal with the current crises by focusing relentlessly on flexible labour markets, i.e. lower wages, poorer working conditions and less job security.
