Eighty-eight of the total 166 universities in the UK have announced redundancy or voluntary severance schemes, according to the University and College Union. This might be of little consequence to those outside the hallowed grounds of academia, but it’s not just jobs that are at stake: it’s the entire preservation of our arts and culture sector.
Before tuition fees were tripled in 2012, university courses were heavily subsidised by the government – once upon a time, higher education in the UK was entirely funded by the government. The hike in fees shifted the cost onto the student, and effectively turned them into consumers, and universities into a product.
This damage was compounded by last year’s visa changes, which have resulted in a severe decline in the numbers of international students coming here to study. According to a report published by the Home Office, international applications have dropped by 14 per cent in the last year alone.
And right on the front line of this are the humanities, who are being disproportionately targeted for closure and job cuts.
I was a lecturer for 14 years. Students stalked, harassed and humiliated me
Read MoreI worked at a UK university for 14 years as a lecturer in literature and history. Our history department was closed in 2019, with almost all the historians employed there losing their jobs. I left in early 2024 when a voluntary severance scheme was opened for the literature department as well. Now that scheme is open across the university, and everyone is bracing themselves for what is to come.
I am old enough to remember when it was important for a university to just have a history department and somewhere to study literature, and I’m not that old. Seriously, what self-respecting research institution doesn’t have a history department? I can’t tell you how degrading and humiliating it is to have to explain to a redundancy panel why history is not a “low value” subject. But as it turns out, these early closures at my institution were only the flashing lights on the dashboard of a sector that was about to implode.
Last year, Goldsmiths, University of London was hit with industrial action after it was announced plans for job cuts in history, anthropology, English and creative writing, music, theatre and performance, visual cultures, and media, communications and cultural studies.
You might be thinking, so what? When it comes to universities and academics, the perception is often that we are all a bunch of milksop leftie whingers who issue trigger warnings with our reading lists, and want everyone to do “David Beckham Studies”. (There has never been a degree in David Beckham Studies, by the way. Staffordshire University looked at David Beckham in a module for a degree in Sports Studies.) But you should care. We all should.
If I were to ask “What makes you proud to be British?”, I imagine reactions would vary wildly from patriotism to a sardonic eyeroll, but if I really pushed you to give me an answer, I would put money on many of your answers being the very subjects that are currently under threat at our universities. Our history, theatre, music, language, literature – our culture.
Take history, for example. Yes, of course you don’t need to work at a university, or even have a degree, to enjoy learning about history. But when it comes to producing original research, to reading and translating manuscripts in the archives, to excavating ancient sites, to preserving artefacts in museums, and unearthing and communicating new information, this is the work that academics do. Documentaries, films, and a great many books are largely based on the pioneering research done by academics in universities.
Is that elitist? Maybe it is, but that’s the system. Unless you have the finances of a billionaire, you are going to struggle to raise funds for your own archaeological dig without the backing of a university. What is elitist is that the majority of universities who have announced mass redundancies and department closures are not the older, “red brick” institutions, but the former polytechnic, post-1992 institutions.
I still rage at that comment years later. Working-class students make up around 20 per cent of undergraduates at the 24 Russell Group universities, while less than four per cent were entitled to free school meals. Should the humanities only be the preserve of the social elite? Should the working class kids just stick to vocational degrees and apprenticeships?
The previous Conservative government was openly hostile to the study of the humanities. It was Rishi Sunak who announced plans to make it mandatory for students to study maths until they are 18. He also threatened to put a cap on “low-performing degrees”. Those of us in the sector suspected this was simply a coded way of saying the arts.
I know that it is hard to rally support for universities when you look at the help needed in the NHS and other public services, but higher education needs government intervention now to prevent any more culling of jobs and courses.
The UK university sector is truly one that we can all be proud of. The research produced there is world-leading. If we lose these courses, we will lose more than thousands of devoted and pioneering academics. We will create a system where only the wealthy and privileged get to study the very subjects that make Britain what it is.
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