UNIVERSITY lecturers have called on radical review into education funding and Tuition Fees in England. The call comes after theresa May has promised a Review and is set to be announced in the next few days, according to the BBC. Leader of the UCU Lecturers Union, Sally Hunt, said this should be more than “tinkering” on the edges and that the review must go deep.
The tuition fees review, expected to be announced by the prime minister and Education Secretary Damian Hinds, will consider cutting or freezing £9,250 fees and lowering interest rates of up to 6.1% for repayments.
Importance of higher education
They have also said that there will be a review over funding for vocational courses and apprenticeships to help deal with the challenges of skills shortages. Something that is likely to increase post-Brexit. The review will focus on funding and tuition fees but doesn’t highlight the issue of part-time fees and students’ cost of living, as pointed out by the director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, Nick Hillman.
There has also been call on the restoration of maintenance grants by former education minister, Justine Greening and others. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has shown that the average student will incur a debt of £50,000, this is directly from the £9,250 fees and 6.1% interest rates.
Education is vital for the economy and society, it provides over £100 billion for the economy and helps create better communities, contributing to social cohesion.
The review into funding is necessary step and positive one because currently it saddles people with huge amounts of debt that they probably won’t end up paying off anyway, leaving the government to foot the bill (including all the interest payments).
Whether or not something will be done after the review is something that will remain to be seen, but with Labour waiting in the wing with a radical overhaul to education funding, Theresa May should be cautious as to how she plays this and not just try to appease the far-right in her party.
But further to the review in funding, a complete overhaul to our education system should be reviewed.
The current system is archaic and doesn’t serve the creative purposes for people in the wider world. The current system rewards on a purely academic basis from specific age, if you don’t show promise from that point, you get deemed not good enough to be with the smarter children despite every child develops at a different pace.
