My Lords, the Bill we are debating today is an enormously important one. I declare an interest as a full-time academic at King’s College London.
The Government are creating the environment in which universities will operate and thrive or decline over many years, probably decades, and are changing it profoundly. Because a country’s universities and the nature of those universities are so central to what a country is—to its values, politics, culture, research and innovation—the Bill is truly important to the whole nation. Yet, curiously, the Bill has nothing to say about universities, as you will find if you have a quick search of the document. It says quite a lot about the university title, and at one point it refers to unauthorised degrees at,
“a university, college or other body”,
by grant, but that is it. Otherwise it refers consistently to “providers”.
Clearly, the Government do not think that the term “university” is meaningless. If it were, neither the Government nor higher education providers nor universities would be so occupied with the university title.
When I dug around a bit, I found that previous legislation also has extraordinarily little to say on the subject. The 1992 higher education Act refers simply to use of the name “university” in the title of an institution, and informs us hopefully that, if the power to change the name is exercisable with the consent of the Privy Council, it may be exercised, with that consent,
“whether or not the institution would apart from this section be a university”.
There is nothing more on what a university is. The Minister has kindly confirmed, in replies to Written Questions that the term is not defined in legislation but is a “sensitive” word under company law, which means that you need permission from the Secretary of State and a non-objection letter before you can use it in a business or company title.
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This is surely extraordinary, but does it really matter? Cannot the Office for Students just know one when it sees one, add a little procedural guidance and decide whether to bestow title accordingly? I suggest that that is not a good idea. First, it is a very odd way to proceed with something which is so important and financially valuable to people, and where the Government clearly believe that we need change. Definitions also matter because the term “university” means something special, and we need to know what it is in order to protect and promote it.
Universities are different from other providers of education, whether schools or other tertiary institutions. They are different because the concept of a university has at its core distinctive values and a commitment to society at large. Individual institutions may or may not live up to and deliver on these—and there are far too many countries in the world where Governments systematically obstruct their universities’ ability to do so—but that does not change the point. We recognise universities as distinct, while also sharing the quotidian activities of teaching, research and consultancy with other institutions, including many that award degrees and diplomas.
Obviously, we could spend weeks or months defining the term, but the question is, first, do we need a definition and, secondly, is the one we are offering today good enough? Other countries have concluded that they need a definition and have defined universities. I suggest that we also need the term to be defined, because otherwise one cannot distinguish clearly between what one asks of, gives to and demands of a university because it is a university and what one asks of other providers. In the past, universities and tertiary or higher education were pretty well synonymous, but that is no longer true. Across the globe, tertiary education is exploding and well on its way to becoming universal in many parts of the developed world.
Universities have changed the world because of what they are: because they are different and distinctive. That is why dictatorial Governments take them over and close them down. It is why people care so much about how government deals with them, and we should make it clear what we believe a university is.
The second question is whether the definition which stands in our names is good enough. I submit that it is: that it identifies the key characteristics of a university while allowing for diversity and evolution. It highlights autonomy, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of expression, as well as teaching, scholarship and research and, critically, universities’ direct contribution to society.
My favourite document on the topic of what is a university is a papal bull which Bishop Elphinstone succeeded in getting to authorise the University of Aberdeen, well before the Reformation. As people will know, university scholars and teachers were often a thorn in the side of the Church, just as the Church was a constant irritation to monarchs who would have liked to be absolute in the exercise of power. The reason I love this papal bull is not just the eloquence and elegance of its prose but because of how it conceives of a university: not as something that brings private gain to students or economic prosperity to the north but something established for the public and social good, to bring,
“that most precious pearl of knowledge”,
to a part of the kingdom deprived of it and,
“to found a university which would be open to all and dedicated to the pursuit of truth in the service of others”.
The Bill offers the opportunity to recognise what universities are and what they are for, and I hope that we will do so.