This is still the question to be addressed as the consequences of less and less certain funding are felt in actual institutions with payrolls and contracts and food service and students. While the recharged Labour Party debate suggests there is political risk, there will be at least four more years of opposition and for institutions maybe five or six years of more or less living within this regime.
We can’t pretend that there has never been a problem of allocation. The system has been expanding since its inception, maybe most rapidly in the past fifty years.
Elitist and egalitarian forces have vied for entry and driven expansion and regrouping. The change in universities has reflected the great social changes of human history. In our tradition, Renaissance, Enlightenment and Socialist Revolution have all been mirrored in the institutions that have more, on balance, sustained dominant orders than challenged them.
Many feel the “end of history” an intrusion, a usurpation by a particular style of business that appears to find little wrong with making money out of the misery of others.
Are there any institutions that would stand up for Corbyn? Should they? Or not? I do not know. What would be the circumstances and conditions of a greatly revised “contract” with the nation? Should someone be planning for that change? Or helping to shape it?
The opposition need to sound credible as an opposition not cut and paste replacements. Their job is to oppose. Corbyn might be very good at leading an opposition. There are three years to get good at opposition. Then ask who might lead into government. That is the next game.
Is there a VC anywhere who would say: “… nay! We indeed need and deserve to drink deeply of public resources because we do far more good than ill”? Where in universities are those who might help provide alternative policies for universities. Acknowledge the conflict in interest up front, but hey, conflict of interest doesn’t bother the powers that be. Let them go on about it while focusing on being good providers of learning.
rWorld2 