A COLLEAGUE asked me yesterday whether I enjoyed studying English at university. “Thoroughly,” was my answer.
Studying English doesn’t just mean dabbling in great works of literature. It also develops critical thought techniques that can be applied to a wide range of other issues, including the world of work and life generally.
But my university days were fun: arguably too much fun. It didn’t really prepare me for the tedium of my first job, as an auditor with Coopers & Lybrand. My fellow graduate trainee auditors and I spent what felt like months going through the ledgers and cash books of some of the world’s biggest quoted companies. With the exception of Robert Maxwell’s companies, there was never a single penny out of place. I couldn’t cope with the tedium, so I quit and became a journalist instead. In monetary terms, it was a very costly move, but at least I kept my sanity.
Of course, back in the 1980s, I didn’t have to contribute to the cost of university education. I sometimes wonder whether the need to pay back tuition fees would have changed my decisions about what course to study and my attitude to what was a well-paid career.
Lord Browne’s review of university tuition fees, published yesterday, strikes me as ideology posing as pragmatism.
Alongside his assertion that British universities need more funding if they are to maintain their position as the best in the world, it is also important that all talented people living in this country should not be daunted by financial hurdles. That must surely be the consequence of the significant increase costs faced by students, who will leave education with big debts.
The individual student is not the only beneficiary of a good education.
Society as a whole, and employers, in particular, gain from a well-educated workforce. A knowledge- based economy is more productive. An appropriately trained workforce would give Britain a competitive edge.
The problem of funding for our universities is increasingly urgent. According to global rankings published by the Times Higher Education Supplement last month, our proud institutions are beginning to slip while rivals in the US consolidate their position.
And I suspect the difference boils down to money.
But you can’t look at what they do in America and decide to copy it. America has some significantly different traditions, with companies and philanthropists contributing more to academic research.
THERE was a fascinating array of economic indicators and analysis published yesterday.
The Office for National Statistics, the British Retail Consortium, the Chartered Institute of Surveyors and the British Chambers of Commerce all published data and surveys which between them painted a patchy economic picture.
Whether it’s slower retail sales growth or stubbornly high inflation, the only certainty is that Britain’s economic recovery remains uncertain.
The Bank of England has a tightrope to walk between aggressively attacking inflation figures that remain persistently well above the 2% target and not choking off our tentative recovery.
Speaking in Dublin yesterday, Monetary Policy Committee member David Miles seemed to reinforce City expectations that any return to quantitative easing or interest rate rises will remain on hold for some time yet.
There is probably no real prospect of a double dip, but the recovery looks set to remain weak.
