The Queen Mary University of London branch of the University and College Union, of which I am co-chair, hosts a webpage, UK HE shrinking, that lists redundancy and closure programmes at UK universities. The list, now 93 institutions long, is the only public attempt so far to track what is happening to higher education institutions in the UK. It is an index of a sector in freefall.
A year ago I received an email from an HR director at another university, asking me to change the description of their ‘transformation’ programme on the list. The HR director’s university was established in the 1960s. It has an international research reputation and a local undergraduate student population. Like most UK universities, it has an accounting model that speculates on overseas fees for postgraduate taught degrees, and, when it doesn’t meet these budgets, cuts undergraduate programmes predominantly taken by home students. It has quite a lot in common with the fictional Brent University, the setting for Jack Rooke’s BAFTA-winning sitcom, Big Boys.
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