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Scotland's democracy depends on its universities, says lecturers' leader

29 October 2008

The future of Scotland's universities is central to a serious public conversation about the nation's future in the wake of the global economic crisis, a lecturer's leader has claimed.

The future of Scotland's universities is central to a serious public conversation about the nation's future in the wake of the global economic crisis, a lecturer's leader has claimed.

Announcing a conference, 'Intellect and Democracy', at St. Cecilia's Hall, Edinburgh, on Friday, Terry Brotherstone, President of the University and College Union Scotland, called for an evidence-based review of higher education to inform decision-making about universities and colleges in the decades beyond 2010.

The conference, which is open to the public, is to be addressed by the leading historian of universities, Professor Robert Anderson, and the European higher education expert Jens Vraa Jensen from Education International. There will then be a round-table involving Scottish education professionals and staff representatives.

'Scotland's educational system, with the universities at its apex, has been central to a sense of nationhood since the 15th century, and to the way the country has been governed since the late nineteenth century,' Brotherstone said. 'The arrival of an SNP government at a time when higher education financing faces a crisis seemed to us an ideal moment for a strategic rethink.

'Instead all we have had so far is a "Taskforce", which meant the government and the university principals seeking a deal, without wider society being allowed to examine the role of universities in a properly informed way. And there are now rumours that the Taskforce can't even agree a final report. This should be seen as an opportunity to open up a much wider and more democratic discussion

'Since the UK Robbins Report in 1963 there hasn't really been a well-evidenced strategic public debate about what universities are for, whether a socially viable democracy needs higher education to be free at the point of use rather than a marketed commodity, or why academic freedom matters. Yet the world universities operate in has been transformed since that time. Scotland, whose universities showed the way to many other nations in the 18th century, could again give a lead within the UK and even internationally.'

Brotherstone went on to say that the current financial and economic crises make such a discussion all the more important. 'Some university academics have understood and published work showing that a major financial crisis was inevitable,' he said. 'But it is difficult for such critical ideas to get the profile they deserve even within their own institutions, which have been too narrowly aimed to satisfy research targets on which much funding depends.

'The way more and more universities are being run as competitive business corporations with salary structures that put 'institutional loyalty' before critical debate and collegial governance - doesn't serve society's best interests. UCU Scotland wants to see a proper discussion about different funding mechanisms that would reward institutions for everything they do in and for society, not just for publishing sometimes very narrowly defined research, or for cooperating with specific government policies.'

Last updated: 14 December 2015

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