Current instructions The report, issued by Education Secretary Gillian Keegan to the Office for Students, reveals conflicting priorities inside the federal government and adds fuel to the hearth burning in an already struggling higher education sector.
The deal with science, technology, engineering and arithmetic (STEM) – “strategically important, high-cost subjects” – is being met with a freeze on funding for arts subjects comparable to music, fashion and theater at undergraduate level.
This amounts to an actual cut within the face of inflation, and there are cuts in graduate education grants – in addition to within the Program to expand participation to support access to higher education for college kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.
It follows an earlier tranche of cuts in 2021 and comes at a time when universities normally – and the humanities and humanities particularly – are struggling. Inflation has exacerbated the strains felt across the sector and exposed long-term tensions on the university The financing model is beginning to unravel.
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In short, the fee of teaching a student exceeds fees, with no immediate prospect of accelerating them, not least because they already burden graduates with heavy debt. This is further reinforced by falling A-level numbers in the humanities and humanities, making recruitment difficult. The inevitable consequence is a decline in provisions.
Oxford Brookes And Kent Universities have announced the closure of their music departments, while there might be redundancies at Goldsmiths endanger as much as half of jobs in departments comparable to English and Creative Writing, History, Music, Theater and Performance and Visual Cultures.
A false economy
The supposed logic of supporting the hard sciences and the general economy exposes contradictions in the federal government's self-declared policies and masks false economics. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Vision for the creative sectorFor example, it says: “The creative industries are a true British success story, from global music stars like Adele and Ed Sheeran to world-class cultural institutions like the National Theater.”
It also crucially highlights the importance of skills “to ensure the sector can attract and develop the best creative talent from all backgrounds and from all parts of the country”.
Even a sober economic perspective suggests that arts provision ought to be encouraged fairly than frozen. According to the federal government's own estimates, the creative industries contribute roughly £126 billion for the UK economy. This is greater than that automobile industryfor instance, or Aerospace, oil and gas.
While obviously lots of the talents needed can be in areas comparable to coding, the contribution still comprises around £27 billion within the fields of music, visual and performing arts, publishing, design, fashion, museums and galleries.
As the federal government recognizes, the humanities offered at universities also further enhance the country's cultural life and its school-age educational framework. The National Plan for Music Educationnotes, for instance, that universities “provide access to live musical performances…through free tickets to on-site concerts or by bringing student artists into schools…”[ing] This has mutual advantages as students gain invaluable experience working with young audiences and school-age students are inspired by musicians their very own age.”
Value of art and science exchange
The contradictions also extend beyond the creative sector and the courses of study directly affected. The funding cuts appear to obscure the worth that arts courses bring to the upper education sector (the worth itself). £71bn gross value added for the economy) as an entire.
Universities don’t operate in silos where arts and STEM are separated. They support one another financially, e.g Cross-subsidization between degrees which can be cheaper to deliver and people which can be costlier (including subjects comparable to engineering).
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In research, too, the entire is bigger than the sum of its parts: the humanities and natural sciences each profit from cross-disciplinary collaboration, especially within the rapidly developing creative sector, where technological know-how, critical considering and an imaginative approach are mutually useful .
This zero-sum approach to arts and STEM in higher education also undermines the holistic, Humboldt model of the university whereby a mixture of research and teaching across the humanities and sciences creates knowledge, values and an engaged citizenry. This has long been central to the strength and international appeal of British universities.
DCMS's Creative Sector Vision highlights the worth of dialogue between interdisciplinary research, business and the broader public sector, arguing that “government and industry have shown how we leverage public funding, the UK's world-leading university base and the… “Ingenuity of the creative industry”.
Tense times result in difficult decisions, especially when The headline numbers show a fluctuation in revenue between graduates from different disciplines. But pitting deals against one another and dividing them into those which can be “useful” is an approach that uses immediate tactics on the expense of long-term strategy.
If funding cuts deteriorate the supply of creative subjects, the impact can be felt beyond the departments directly affected. The arts are the inspiration of the creative economy, and universities are a part of a broader research, development and education ecosystem that, even in the federal government's own words, relies on exchanges between arts and science to create value across all sectors.
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