Month: July 2024

Squaring the Circle

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.

  1. “The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones” (Marx, German Ideology (1845))
  2. “Language is the immediate actuality of thought” (Marx, German Ideology, Chapter 3 (1846))
  3. “ruthless criticism of all that exists” Marx, Letter from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (1843)
  4. “from the world of thought to the actual world”  Marx, German Ideology, Chapter 3 (1846)

Image by PIRO from Pixabay

Dear University…

The change in the UCAS personal statement for September 2026 entry appears to have been welcomed by industry commentators who suggest it will make life “easier” for both author and reader.  The stated ambition “to ensure more people from disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit  from the life-changing opportunity of higher education”  is laudable but one might ask if this approach is best or sustainable.  We could just be opening a new battleground in the struggle for supremacy between AI coders for applicants and those in universities trying to spot the hand of ChatGPT. 

Having read personal statements in the past, I can only begin to imagine the repetition of thought and words across hundreds of applicants as they answer to “why do you want to study this course”.  For applicants the anxiety of how edgy, pushy, obsequious, or data-driven to be in responding to the question remains the same and it will still be considered by a human with their personal interpretation of the best answer.  More efficient but even worse if the response is considered by a bot looking for key words. Perhaps it is time to radically rethink the process. 

Perhaps selecting universities, to put all applicants meeting their requirements (including contextual elements and any other considerations) into a random draw to remove any risk of bias.  For universities struggling to meet enrollment numbers it is difficult to see how bad a personal statement would have to be to get refused if the applicant meets the qualifications criteria for entry.  Either way, the student gets more clarity on what they need to do and an equal chance of success.       

Or maybe universities should be accepting that students are paying for the privilege to study and have a right to apply for whatever course they want if they have the qualifications.  Nobody asks somebody coming in to buy a Range Rover Evoque for £50,000 why they want it, whether they’ve driven one before or what their driving history is.  They might ask to see a driving licence before it’s driven off the lot but that’s about it.

I hear the howls about a degree course being nothing like any other purchase but students seem to be increasingly clear that they are considering degrees as an investment they are making towards a better job, career and life.  UCAS research indicates that “value matters to students” and that “initially, applicants are interested in career prospects after their degree”.  While students still value wellbeing, enjoyment and happiness it would seem there has been a fundamental swing towards outcomes.   

…I Would Like To Apply

With all that in mind there is an opportunity to test drive the new format in the imaginary persona of an applicant who would like to go to university but has been reading very widely about the sector.  They are anxious to explain their interest but also to demonstrate their research, their personality and some of their concerns. There is even an attempt at humour.             

1. Why do you want to study this course or subject?

Because I believe in your publicity that having a degree will get me a good career and well paid job.  That is really what I want. I trust you.  As you will see from my application to your institution I am avoiding the Russell Group and STEM subjects. I realise this means that being from a poorer, socio-economic background and a neglected region I can expect to be part of the statistics showing that “a degree often fails to deliver the promise of increased earnings.” 

Although I’ve chosen to believe that the graduate premium exists, I am a bit worried that there is “a more uncertain future” and ignoring the Government Graduate Labour Market Statistics indicating that over the past 20 years real median graduate salaries have declined faster than those of non-graduates.  I am hoping that reports that it’s even worse outside London1 are all Balls1 and that the indications more and more companies are dropping the requirement for a degree to get a job are overblown. 

I want to come to university to help the sector by improving statistics on one of the groups it struggles to attract and I’ve chosen to study psychology because I am keen to improve gender balance in the class.2 

2. How have your qualifications and studies prepared you for this course or subject?

I am predicted to achieve the grades that you publish and in the right subjects.  My teachers may just be being kind, overworked or avoiding confrontation with my parents but that’s not my fault.  I’m told you’re so desperate I shouldn’t worry about missing by a bit.  Only joking (!) but we have all read the studies that 25% of grades are probably wrong  and that half the students get in with lower grades anyway. 

Post qualification application would solve the uncertainty and anxiety for young people but I appreciate that you have established a system that works for you and will find excuses not to change it.  Maybe it’s just a power thing or you think you’re some sort of magical sorting hat with a campus attached.  If I fail to get the grades I hope I will be given the same opportunity as an international year one student who pays for the privilege to study on campus with direct entrants. 

While on the subject of grades, it would be helpful to know exactly what you are doing about degree grade inflation and why half of first class degrees awarded are unexplained by statistical modelling.  I see you are correcting this but that means I might be penalized by having a lower degree classification than someone who attended in those golden years.

3. What other experiences have prepared you for this course, and why are they relevant?

I complain a lot and so can support that student trend. I can even enhance my global citizenship in line with your strategy by providing support for international students as they are 36% of all complaints to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for HE.  Because I often borrow money from my siblings and never pay it back I’ll cope well with joining the 1.8m graduates with a taxpayer funded debt of over £50,000 and those not earning enough to pay it off.  As I don’t like getting out of bed not attending lectures is OK with me and given the way you’re cutting staff that should help you out. 

I’m quite frugal, so living in borderline poverty shouldn’t be a problem however bad the maintenance loan situation gets.  I am also used to disappointment (having supported Gareth Southgate and England since 2018) which will lessen the pain when I get to the realities of the graduate job hunt.  My empathy is shown by my concern for international students on reading that data collection on graduate outcomes has been cut back which means they have even less insight than I do about job prospects. 

In summary my experience as an intense online gambler, who eats little, never goes out, earns a pittance, borrows heavily, complains a lot, expects to be disappointed and has limited life prospects has prepared me perfectly for life as a student.  Only kidding (again) I really would like the chance to learn.

The Generation Game

For this imaginary student there is a lot to consider in the light of survey research suggesting 30% of people being “broadly uninterested” in universities and a further 27% being “negative” or “sceptical”.  While the culture wars that saw the Conservative Government going head-to-head with the sector in recent years may be over there is little respite in terms of additional funding to reduce the level of fee debt or improve maintenance loans.  As the imaginary statement suggests there seem to be plenty of reasons to worry about whether university is a good investment of time, money and stress.

The weakness in UK undergraduate applications revealed by UCAS this week suggest that this argument might be playing out in the minds not only of 18 year olds but also every group under 25. It’s troubling in the context of a rapidly growing 18 year old cohort that is predicted to expand for the rest of the decade and even more so if surveys suggesting a third of UK students may drop out due to money worries are accurate.

Notes

  1. For those who miss the link the report “Tackling the UK’s regional economic inequality: binding constraints and avenues for policy intervention” is co-authored by Ed Balls whose surname was the punchline to Michael Heseltine’s joke at the Conservative Party Conference in 1995.
  2. It is entirely recognized that the gender imbalance on courses cuts both ways. It is also clear that despite more women than men going to university in the UK there is a huge amount still to be done on gender pay imbalances and equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has explored aspects of the intersection between these factors.

Image by Antonios Ntoumas from Pixabay

Stepping Up or Standing Down

The first thing to say is that I am not Cristiano Ronaldo.  One of us has better cheek bones than Joni Mitchell, appreciates ice baths more than Wim Hof and turned footballing talent into greatness through application and willpower.  The other writes the viewfromabridge.org blog.

As Ronaldo stepped up to take the first penalty in the shoot-out against Slovenia he encapsulated all the best things about leadership, taking responsibility and nerve.  Having had a penalty saved in the course of the game and shed tears just a few minutes before the shoot out, it may have included an element of egotism but it certainly showed self-belief.  It also reminded me of an important professional lessons from my early career.

Three Strikes

I was in month one at ASDA as a Public Relations Officer and finding life hard.  It felt a million miles away from my first job as Press Officer at Tesco where I had established a network and a successful start to my career.  It was my first time living a long way from family or friends and I had no track record of delivery in the new company.

The buyers were a hard-edged, hard-nosed, hard driven group who bargained for every advantage in a company that based its ASDA Price brand on being low-cost.  Both grocery buying and fresh food buying were led by Liverpudlians1 who took no nonsense and no prisoners from either suppliers or new arrivals from the south.  For those familiar with the Liverpool teams over the years it was more Tommy Smith (the “Anfield Iron”) and Ron Yeats (“the Colossus”) than Virgil Van Dijk and Harvey Elliott. 

Being invited to a fresh food buyer meeting to be briefed on an innovation felt like a good moment to assert my skills and dispense my wisdom on all things media related.  The meeting began and was straight down to business with the announcement that ASDA had worked with suppliers and was launching new cheese packaging that was colour-graded and numbered to show strength of flavour from mild to strong.  All eyes turned to me as I was asked about the coverage would be possible when it was launched.

Mistake one was to believe that this was the moment for a treatise on the way the media worked.  Mistake two was to think that cheese grading was not important news and that a competitor might have already beaten us to a similar scheme.  Mistake three was to verbalize those thoughts.  We all know that three strikes and you’re out.

As I finished my lengthy and patronising explanation of why this was not national news all heads pivoted to the Associate Director at the head of the table for the judgement and sentence.  It was brief and dismissive, “I’ll talk to Iain Tweedie in the morning.”  Iain was my boss, who had all the edginess and steel of an ex-Manchester Evening News reporter alongside the smarts to go on to build a global career in a major bank.

My mouth was flapping as I tried to find a way back but I was cut off as the meeting moved on to the next business.  For another hour I was trapped in the room with nobody looking at me let alone commiserating.  As I prepared my resignation letter that night, I was consumed by my failure to perform well, a sense of public humiliation and the belief that there was no hope of redemption.  I may not be Ronaldo but seeing his despair brought it all back.

Stepping Up

Iain Tweedie arrived early but I had been in the office an hour rehearsing my resignation speech and had already handed the letter over and begun explaining when the phone rang.  It was the Associate Director and I hear Iain’s calm tones as he responded, “Well Alan’s here and has been thinking about it overnight.  He’s on his way over with his ideas.” He put the phone down and gave me a one-minute briefing that stayed with me all my life:

  • Explain that you realise you hadn’t taken time to express your recognition of the work people had put into the grading scheme but that you’ve been thinking about ways of getting publicity.
  • Talk about some very big ideas – projecting the ASDA logo on the moon, floating a barge with a huge cheese on it down the Thames past the Houses of Parliament – and say anything is possible if there is sufficient budget and you want to be on the front pages of the national papers.
  • Then shut up, listen to what the Associate Director says and respond with enthusiasm.

The pep talk was a masterclass in accepting responsibility for your actions, showing appreciation for the client and the brief, demonstrating your creativity and ambition while recognizing budgetary constraints, then showing respect for feedback.  He gave me his absolute backing and confidence but left no doubt that it was my personal responsibility to have the conversation. Duly fortified and directed I walked on slightly wobbly legs down the corridor to the Associate Director’s office.

I don’t remember too much of the discussion but I certainly made good on accepting that I hadn’t done very well in the meeting and borrowed the barge idea before closing my mouth and really concentrating.  He said, “All I was really wanting was to get something in the The Grocer for the team and the suppliers”.  For readers unfamiliar with the UK retail scene, The Grocer, is a major trade magazine that would be more than happy to take an ASDA article with quotes from a senior director announcing an innovative cheese grading scheme.

I realised that I had just been given a brief that clarified the audience and the objective. Had I taken the time to ask questions about these vital aspects of communication in the meeting I wouldn’t have had a night of torment. The PR lesson was to start by understanding the job to be done2. Five minutes later I left the office to continue what turned into a successful six years at ASDA and even got invited back a second time as part of the team rebuilding the company after near bankruptcy. 

Looking back, I smile grimly at the overreaction of writing a resignation letter for something so minor but understand the lack of maturity and experience at play.  Nobody held the incident against me and I learnt that from time to time almost everybody has been in a similar situation. Most of all I learnt that even after something feels like a disaster it is rarely game over unless you decide it is. 

All That Matters

So, there you have it.  People talk about getting back on the horse after being thrown or that “it’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up”3.  My own favourite aphorism is – all that matters is what you do next – whether it is following success or failure.

Cristiano took a deep breath and placed the ball perfectly into the corner of the net as the first step in Portugal winning the penalty shoot-out.  We will all remember him making a clutch play when he was mentally and physically exhausted. Bom trabalho, Cristiano, but good luck to England in Sunday’s European Championship final.

NOTES

  1. Len McCormick (who went on to become Deputy Chairman at Batley’s cash and carry) led grocery buying, the foundation of ASDA’s price leadership, and David Robinson led fresh food buying at the time.  It’s a long time ago but my best recollection is that they both hailed from Liverpool – if anybody knows better I’m happy to correct the record.
  2. Clayton Christensen’s “theory of jobs to be done” is one of the great, all purpose ideas that every communicator should know. It works as much for internal communications and meetings as for product development and branding. It’s also great for helping put a perspective on personal choices.
  3. There are several versions of this saying but the version quoted here is attributed to Vince Lombardi, head coach & general manager of the Green Bay Packers from 1959-1967.  He is also credited with saying “Fatigue makes cowards of us all” which, in the context of a penalty taken at the end of 120 minutes play, suggests the extent of Ronaldo’s self-discipline and will.