Squaring the circle represents a geometry problem from Greek mathematics with some suggesting that Anaxagoras was the first to work on it around 450 BC. The problem required the construction of a square with the area of a given circle using only Euclidean construction and a limited number of steps. It wasn’t until 1882 that the Lindemann-Weierstrass theorem, which proves that pi is a transcendental number, showed that the task was impossible.
The incoming Labour government may find it has a similarly difficult task in trying to balance UK economic strategy, workforce needs and international student recruitment. When a student visa comes with two years of guaranteed opportunity to find a job and international enrollment growth is dependent on post-study work rights, the linkage between study and work is evident. For a government that is committed to getting the UK employment rate from 75% to 80% with “2 million more people in work across the UK” it will interesting to see if there is enough economic growth to meet all needs.
It’s also interesting to look at the party’s historic position on the relationship between work and study rights and the thinking of some of its current leading figures on the economic and political priorities. With plans for primary/secondary years and “training, an apprenticeship, or help to find work for all 18- to 21-year-olds” articulated in its manifesto the current priorities for education also seem clear. What seems to be lacking is any real focus on higher education.
The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones1
Labour’s underlying attitude to the balance between jobs and migration may have been articulated in 2007 when Jacqui Smith, now Education Minister, was the Home Secretary introducing the new points-based visa system. She noted its role in “…ensuring that only those migrants Britain needs can come to work or study in the UK.” The absolute clarity of “only those migrants Britain needs” suggests a transactional approach to study and work visas founded on the UK’s express requirements rather than open house on post-study work.
It was consistent with the Labour Government’s five year strategy published in February 2005. Then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, noted, “We will bring all our current work schemes and students into a simple points-based system designed to ensure that we are only taking migrants for jobs that cannot be filled from our own workforce…” (my emphasis).
By February 2009 Smith was having to tighten up on the points based system for migrant workers and saying, “Just as in a growth period we needed migrants to support growth, it is right in a downturn to be more selective about the skill levels of those migrants, and to do more to put British workers first.” While it was a Conservative Government that would cut post study work rights in 2011 as unemployment was stuck at c8% it is difficult to think Labour would have done anything else.
Language is the immediate actuality of thought2
Bridget Phillipson may be on record as saying, “Be in no doubt: international students are welcome in the UK” but amid all the happy talk that has got the sector so excited there must surely be an underlying concern that these are only words. Back in 2011, David Cameron said, “We’re working with the sector to encourage the brightest and best students from around the world to come and study..” and in 2012 Theresa May said, “…we want the best and the brightest minds in the world to come to study in Britain, and we want our world-class universities to thrive.” Everyone knows what happened next.
Jacqui Smith, as Minister of State for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, will certainly have to reconsider her responses if she is truly to “champion universities”. The early signs are less than encouraging, as she has already failed to guarantee support for universities under funding pressure and only remarked that universities should be “looking at how they can run efficiently as possible”. This follows Bridget Phillipson’s suggestion that there are “expectations around how they manage their budgets, and I would expect them to do that without seeking any calls on the taxpayer”
It would be naïve of universities to read much into the government’s more supportive statements other than an attempt to calm the crew (rather than actively steady the ship) while they face much more important issues like a £20bn funding gap, a collapsing NHS and armed forces unable to fight a sustained conflict. If the sector chooses to pursue significant increases in international student enrollments to fill a funding gap it runs the risk of compromising the Government on a migration issue where much of the voting public remains nervous. The severity of the Chancellor in the House of Commons yesterday is also not to be underestimated.
Ruthless criticism of all that exists3
There may also be something about the underlying thinking of key figures in the Labour party that mitigates against allowing significant growth in the number of students working after studying. Keir Starmer made it clear to the CBI in 2022 that Labour would set about “reducing the UK’s dependency on migrant labour”. More generally in a policy vacuum related to universities he has ditched a commitment to abolish student tuition fees and has constantly dodged making any aspirational statements on higher education participation.
In an essay for a Fabian Society publication in 2016 the Chancellor Rachel Reeves noted that, “it is important to acknowledge that being a member of the EU did help keep wages lower for many workers”. More recently she has said that “..rising population growth from immigration has sometimes exacerbated the slow take-up of technology in the UK economy.” The political element is also clear with Reeve’s noting in 2016 that “Immigration controls and ending free movement has to be a red line post-Brexit – otherwise we will be holding the voters in contempt.” None of this suggests a free for all on student or graduate visas will be welcome.
A proponent of the strategy to reduce the numbers on long-term sickness benefit is Alan Milburn, an ex-Labour Secretary of State for Health, who also links the practical issue of UK domestic employment with the political realities. Writing in The Times he says, “This is a wake-up call for the new Labour government to wean themselves off the easy solution of importing more workers from overseas”. Any increase in the number of international students seeking work after study may be seen as in tension with “getting more out-of-work Brits into work”.
It could be even worse if Labour is looking at commentary from Australia where Leith van Onselen has recently argued that entry level jobs are “swallowed by international students”. His argument is that this is “posing problems for younger Australians seeking entry into the labour market.” The last thing the sector, or Labour, needs is a controversy where domestic students are unable to pay back tax-payer funded debt because international students are dominating the jobs market.
From the world of thought to the actual world4
It is reasonable to note that if you change the conditions of the problem, squaring the circle becomes possible and that the Labour Party Manifesto ran for office under the slogan “Our plan to change Britain”. The pressing question is whether the Labour government is fully committed to seeing universities as a key part of a preferred solution to change Britain and if it does, why is there no sense of direction at the moment? It has already shown that it is lukewarm on the notion of committing money to help failing universities and where the manifesto commits to 18- to 21-year-olds it is all about training, apprenticeships and finding work.
There is no sweeping commitment to increase the numbers going to university, industrial strategy seems couched in terms of “research institutions”, university spinouts, and using public investment to unlock private sector investment. There is a commitment to reduce net migration and its sentence on ending the days of “a sector languishing endlessly on immigration shortage lists” might be directed at universities as much as employers. The “barriers to opportunity” section of the manifesto offers progressive plans for schools, apprenticeships and further education while higher education gets “strengthening regulation”, better integration with FE, improving access and raising teaching standards.
None of this looks like a Labour party that, even if sympathetic to aspiration and more domestic students in higher education, sees the current, disparate and expensive offering of three-year campus based degrees for young people as the optimal way forward. We shall see.
NOTES
All sub-headings are from the writings of Karl Marx. Congratulations to the Marxist Internet Archive for a very well organized and interesting site.
- “The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones” (Marx, German Ideology (1845))
- “Language is the immediate actuality of thought” (Marx, German Ideology, Chapter 3 (1846))
- “ruthless criticism of all that exists” Marx, Letter from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (1843)
- “from the world of thought to the actual world” Marx, German Ideology, Chapter 3 (1846)