The danger is that the review starts by asking how we can make the existing university system financially sustainable, rather than considering the bigger question of what kind of university system Wales needs over the next 20 year
A graduate.(Image: Boy_Anupong via Getty Images)
As this column has argued over the past two and a half years, few decisions facing the Welsh Government matter more than determining the future of higher education in Wales.
Our universities face an increasingly difficult financial environment, with pressure on student recruitment, rising costs and growing questions about whether the current funding model is sustainable.
At the same time, Wales continues to struggle with some of the lowest levels of productivity, economic growth and innovation in the United Kingdom. If universities are to play a central role in reversing that position, as they surely must, then we need to think much more seriously about what we expect them to deliver for the nation.
Against this background, the Welsh Government has now established an independent panel to review higher education in Wales, and its membership looks impressive on paper.
Those appointed have considerable experience in university leadership, higher education funding, regulation, governance, student finance and the wider education system. They are undoubtedly capable individuals who understand how universities operate and the challenges they face.
But looking at the collective experience of those appointed, I cannot help wondering whether the Welsh Government has assembled the right group of people to address the fundamental challenges facing Welsh higher education.
My concern is not their individual competence or integrity, but whether a panel dominated by those who have spent much of their careers within universities and the institutions that oversee them can genuinely challenge the assumptions on which the current system is built.
In many ways, this is precisely the sort of panel that one might expect civil servants to assemble. It is credible, experienced and knowledgeable, but firmly rooted in the institutions and networks that have shaped higher education policy for decades.
Such appointments are understandable because they reassure us the review is in safe hands. However, an important distinction exists between being independent of government and being independent of the established thinking that has shaped higher education policy for decades.
The danger is that the review starts by asking how we can make the existing university system financially sustainable, rather than considering the bigger question of what kind of university system Wales needs over the next 20 years – and those are two very different questions.
Of course, financial sustainability matters. Without institutions that can pay their bills, recruit staff and maintain their facilities, there cannot be a meaningful discussion on teaching, research or wider economic contribution.
However, any national review should start by determining our universities’ purpose in a rapidly changing world, then establish the institutional structures and funding arrangements needed to achieve it. Instead, this exercise risks focusing primarily on managing financial pressures within the existing system rather than examining whether the system itself needs fundamental reform.
For example, one of the panel’s most striking features is the relative absence of people with direct experience in private-sector investment, business creation and commercial transformation. That matters because at the heart of any such review should be the question why Wales continues to struggle to translate its considerable academic talent into stronger productivity and higher prosperity.
Sadly, such questions seem less central to the panel’s collective expertise than the traditional concerns of funding, regulation and institutional management.
Some will also ask why there was no-one appointed with substantial experience of restructuring complex organisations outside education who could challenge whether Wales needs its current configuration of universities, campuses and academic provision.
And most important of all, why is there no-one under the age of 30 in this group, rather than senior figures who went to university when it was free and who cannot fully grasp the modern realities facing those young people studying today?
There is also the issue of the financial restriction placed on the review itself. The Welsh Government’s terms of reference require its recommendations to be fiscally neutral in relation to non-ring-fenced resource spending on higher education and student grants.
Of course, this does not prevent the panel from recommending changes in how existing money is spent, identifying savings or examining capital investment, but it does mean that proposals cannot increase the overall amount of Welsh Government resource funding covered by this restriction.
But what if reforming our universities requires transitional funding to support restructuring, develop new areas of specialisation or improve the commercialisation of research? What if relatively modest additional investment today could generate substantial economic benefits over the next 20 years?
If it cannot examine such scenarios, we risk producing a review that tells us how to manage the money currently available rather than what investment and reform the university system in Wales actually needs.
This brings us back to the fundamental question of what Welsh higher education is actually for. Our universities are not simply educational institutions that award degrees, undertake research and preserve their own organisational structures. They are among Wales’ most significant publicly supported institutions, with the potential to shape our economy, transform communities and create opportunities for generations to come. That means judging success not simply by whether institutions remain financially viable, but by the difference they make to Wales’ economic and social future.
Naturally, I hope this review will be ambitious, challenging and genuinely transformational, especially as its members have considerable knowledge and experience and deserve the opportunity to look beyond the institutions and policies they know. But as always in Wales, there is a danger that the status quo will be tweaked, resulting yet again in recommendations that stabilise the existing system without addressing its deeper weaknesses.
The question is therefore a simple one. Is this panel reviewing higher education to preserve the universities we already have, or is it prepared to design the university system that Wales actually needs? For the sake of future generations, I sincerely hope it is the latter, as the choice between managed decline and radical change is no choice at all.
