I've been reading some material recently on the issue of privatisation of education and decided to blog about it and share some links. The debate is not a new one by any means, but I've come across some new issues which I'd previously not heard of and thought I'd share them in the interest of spreading awareness.
Of course we know about the recent increase in UK tuition fees (£9,000, up from £3,000), and we know that some governmental support services for those from lower income backgrounds have been either decreased or entirely cut. Less well known is that governmental grants for the arts, humanities and social sciences have been entirely cut. This is not true for science, engineering, technology or mathematics however. The National Union of Students reported that at least 24 universities could therefore lose all their funding. This reflects a troubling utiliarian perspective which values institutions in so far as they produce graduates who will directly increase the national economy. Such a move also places a very low value on the arts and on culture more generally. Charlotte Higgins, writing in the Guardian, sums up this state of affairs by declaring that a "dark new philistinism" is now abroad.
As Alan Finlayson has written, the arts, humanities and social sciences "can best contribute to collective understanding of our social, economic and political situation" and "enable citizens to understand what is being done to them, why, and by whom. " As he goes on to say, in cutting funding to these subject areas the government is "seeking to weaken the fields that help people know who they are or what they might be; knowledge that is part of what everyone needs to question authority and become fully human in fast changing times."
And of course these subjects do contribute to industry, namely the "creative industries" as they are called. Paul Thompson, rector of the Royal College of Art, has warned that cutting funding to arts colleges will lead to a lack of supply of talent for the creative industries, and will also force talent abroad. Interestingly, he also talked about the way in which artists often collaborate with engineers and so prioritising the hard sciences over the arts and humanities would lead to less collaborations.
Barry Ife, principle of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, has also pointed out that as many of the most talented artists come from the postgraduate population, increasing fees will deter more people from postgraduate study and therefore affect the supply of creative talent.
But the biggest and most interesting new development that emerged recently is that of the growth of private universities and colleges. The British philosopher A.C. Grayling has just announced a private for-profit undergraduate college called the New College of the Humanities (NCH), which will open in the autumn of 2012. The college will charge £18,000 per year in tuition fees and offer a liberal arts style education. However, although it is a private for-profit college, backed by private investors, it is in fact parasitic upon the public education sector. The University of London will be awarding the degrees and the NCH will be using their libraries and other facilities. Whilst Grayling and his supporters argue that the college represents a defence of the humanities (saving them from extinction since no one else will fund them), critics accuse Grayling of betraying his humanist values and of throwing in his lot with elitism and venture capitalism.
But whilst some critics, such as Terry Eagleton, accuse Grayling's college of being staffed by "a bunch of prima donnas jumping ship and creaming off the bright and loaded", Priyamvada Gopal argues more interestingly that Grayling's NCH is "at least partly a reflection of how we scholars in the humanities have made or failed to make history in institutional and political circumstances not of our own choosing." She argues that people working in the humanities are divided and have not found a way to resist against and fight back at the government's policies of cutting.
Gopal's article goes on to raise many well known but crucial issues concerning the humanities. One issue is that academics within the humanities have "played" the system too much, accepting the terms of the debate set by the government and the corporate sector. For example, they have too often accepted the idea that the humanities must show that it provides narrowly defined "transferable skills" with applications outside the field.
There is another issue at stake in the idea of private for-profit colleges like NCH. If Grayling is accepted as defending the humanities with this venture, then the question must arise: 'what will the humanities look like from the point of view of private colleges like NCH?' One look at the professor-shareholders who have signed up to NCH and you will see, in Gopal's words, "many of the world’s most renowned votaries of the superiority of Western civilisation, advocates of a narrow and parochial humanism defined as a Western possession, indeed in some cases, specifically, if implicitly, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant." This narrow representation of the humanities is hardly much of a defence of the best the humanities has to offer. It seems more of a return to elitism, class homogeneity, and intolerant rationalism, masked as liberal humanism.
In the face of all these attacks on public education, on the arts and humanities, and on the value of a liberal arts education, what can be done? There are a number of things that must be done. The arts and humanities must be defended as a social and public good in itself. We mustn't accept the terms of the debate from either the government or the corporate sector. There are other systems of value besides pecuniary ones and utiliarian/pragmatic ones. In part this means paying attention to language because it is instructive to notice how the government and the business sector talk. They talk of 'a global knowledge economy', of 'value-for-money education,' and of 'transferable skills.' Whilst this kind of language is arguably useful and appropriate in some areas of society, I don't believe it is appropriate when talking about the arts and humanities. Or, rather, the arts and humanities offer more than just transferable skills and enrich society in more ways than just the economic one. An education in the arts and humanities enriches one's life, helps one to become critical of the structures of society, allows one to appreciate beauty, creativity and other values which transcend the imperative to make profit, and at its best encourages free thought and independent inquiry.
Secondly, public education and the arts and humanities must be defended from within and from without. This means both public demonstrations and protests, and it means academics and intellectuals resisting pressure to conform to business practices and standing up for what they (should) do. The arts and humanities are often seen as either harmless or useless, and this must be shown to be false by engaging in independent and critical thinking. In times of crisis, when governments are lowering the living standard of the majority of people through austerity measures in order to save the banks, and when the rich are lining their pockets thanks to tax breaks, we need educated people more than ever and we need what the arts and humanities give us more than anything. We need the ability to critique existing power structures which will then lay the ground for emancipation. We need artists to both offer artistic portraits of the times and open our minds to new ways of looking at things. And we need intellectuals who can reinvigorate our sense of the past in order to create a different, and hopefully better, present and future.
There are many great articles and videos on this topic. I've posted some below. I hope they prove useful.
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Jane Hardy writing in the Socialist Review on Grayling's NCH: http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=11712
Noam Chomsky speaking about academic freedom and the corporatisation of universities: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q97tFyqHVLs&feature=feedlik
Here is the UCU's website: http://www.ucu.org.uk/stopprivatisation
Alan Finlayson's piece at OpenDemocracy.net: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/alan-finlayson/britain-greet-age-of-privatised-higher-education
Andy Worthington's article: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/11/22/did-you-miss-this-100-percent-funding-cuts-to-arts-humanities-and-social-sciences-courses-at-uk-universities/
Charlotte Higgins' piece in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/nov/14/arts-funding-cuts-universities
A great myth-busting article in Red Pepper: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/higher-education-the-lie-busting-low-down/
An article on how the cuts affect art colleges and artists: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/14/arts-cuts-education-designers-musicians-overseas
Priyamvada Gopal's article at New Left Project: http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/the_humanities_going_down_without_a_fight
Terry Eagleton's article for The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/06/ac-graylings-new-private-univerity-is-odious
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