In February of last year Universities expressed deep concerns towards what they believed was an education crisis within the UK. A report by the 1994 Group, which is a organisation that represents 19 UK universities, with the goal of assessing the future of studies post graduation.
Prof Michael Farthing, chairman of the 1994 Group and vice chancellor at the University of Sussex, said: “High level skills are absolutely essential to the country’s long-term economic prospects, but we’re in real danger of choking off the pipeline of future postgraduate talent.
“The government’s failure to address postgraduate funding has been a real error of judgement and we need to see some immediate action to avoid disaster.
The pressure on the government also came from other associations highlighting the possible “great and lasting” effects ignoring this issue could have on the future economy.
The department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) have therefore come up with something they hope will help increase the numbers of students taking up postgraduate courses.
The HEFCE argue that these new steps could lead to increasing the access to postgraduate courses, something which has often been linked as a potential barrier to social mobility.
There will be an initial £25 million fund that will distribute grants of between £500,000 and £3 million to universities and colleges to attract and support disadvantaged students into postgraduate education.
After studying its success, the Government will then invest an additional £50m in removing financial or cultural barriers to participation in postgraduate education, which was announced in the latest Spending Review. However, this scheme does lend on extra funding, which will be expected from universities and businesses, bringing this to around £100 million.
David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, said:
‘Postgraduate study is good for students, good for universities, and good for the economy.
We want talented graduates from all backgrounds to feel inspired and able to continue their education.
By removing financial barriers for more masters courses, this potential £125 million investment will provide a big boost to our internationally renowned postgraduate sector.’
The announcement comes as HEFCE today published a review showing students’ economic background, school history and undergraduate institution all play a role in determining levels of enrollment at postgraduate level.
The ‘Postgraduate education in England and Northern Ireland’ report also highlights that the English postgraduate sector is globally successful, and postgraduates gain considerable benefits from their study, including increased employability and earnings.
Sir Alan Langlands, HEFCE Chief Executive, said:
‘Postgraduate education in England thrives in a climate of limited regulation and shared contributions from individuals, government and business.
The funding we are announcing today will help universities and colleges to develop partnerships that fit their particular strengths and interests, encouraging students into postgraduate education and in many cases, postgraduate research.’
Nevertheless, it is patently obvious to see that even with the investment of £100m it will still not be enough to keep the existing postgraduate pipeline open. There needs to be more done in terms of captivating some inventive engineering on how to build new supply routes to these courses.
One possible solution is to look into refashioning the existing programme and looking at finding solutions. Firstly split degrees for overseas undergraduates, where a student does a proportion of their course at a university in Britain and completes the rest at their home institution. These have been running successfully for many years as they help keep down student costs, while for institutions it can be a useful way of increasing student numbers.
After all employers are interested in courses where they see a direct benefit to their area of activity. In the future it would maybe become wise for employers to become more involved in course design and development. Although, this remains to be tested it could lead to specialist courses and more success in graduates gaining work.
However, these up for debate changes to the postgraduate system would undoubtably pose certain challenges to universities and their structural landscape, which will most likely never see the light of day. Therefore it now becomes the waiting game to see whether this new injection does in-fact give the country the spark it needs by getting more students into postgraduate courses.
