Classified targets

The letter below appears in today's Times Higher. The article commented on is set out below that,

Classified targets

20 November 2008

John Holford's article "There is a wider purpose for universities than 'serving the economy'" (13 November) rightly draws critical attention to the Government's compression of the definition of higher education users to an increasingly narrow band within the spectrum of stakeholders - excluding staff representatives while including employer representatives in its "consultation group".

The approach is more worrying when considered alongside the comment by Christine King, vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University, in the same issue on the Government's review of the part-time student sector, that "the extent of demand remains uncertain" for "higher education qualifications that are co-funded by employers".

Could the answer be right under our noses, among employers in one of the UK's world-class sectors - military armaments? After all, the co-chair of the consultation group, Sir John Chisholm, is executive chair of QinetiQ, a defence development company whose labours are reportedly 80 per cent "secret squirrel" work for the Ministry of Defence, so secret it is not open to commercial application.

There are worrying signs of the increasing militarisation of UK universities via secret and secretive contracting and partnership arrangements. Such narrow "consultation" exercises as those Holford highlights do not serve to allay legitimate fears within academia of what may happen to free debate and the flow of information within a higher education sector potentially increasingly co-funded under such circumstances.

Roger Rees, The Open University (in a personal capacity).
There is a wider purpose for universities than 'serving the economy'

13 November 2008

John Holford fears that the Denham 'user group' may be unaware of Tawney's ideal of education's generous, humane and liberal spirit

In his speech to the Universities UK Annual Conference in September, Secretary of State for Higher Education John Denham announced the formation of a "user consultation group" on higher education.

Some have voiced concern about this ("Academics and diversity in short supply on task forces", 16 October).

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, was rightly perplexed at the exclusion of academics, while Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, pointed to a "conflict of interest" in one of the group's joint chairmen also sitting on the Confederation of British Industry's higher education task force.

But few have asked: "What does this group tell us about John Denham's vision for higher education?"

Of course, we no longer find it strange that a Labour Secretary of State, when appointing what amounts to an advisory committee, includes no representation of labour whatever. In our brave New Labour world, few question that people's interests are best articulated by their employers.

Even if the purpose of higher education were reducible to furthering the interests of business, excluding representation of working people would make little sense. But as the nation's leaders grapple with the fallout from their infatuation with all things corporate, it is time to imagine again a wider purpose for universities than "serving the economy".

R. H. Tawney, historian, educator and democratic socialist, thought education should be of a "generous, humane and liberal spirit". So it should.

The members of Denham's user group may, for all I know, share Tawney's humane view of education. But he has appointed them as representatives of particular sectors and has asked them to advise him on what "a world-class higher education sector would look like in 10-15 years'" time to support their needs.

We are justified, therefore, in asking: whose needs are they likely to articulate? How broad is their vision of "world-class higher education" likely to be?

The group's co-chairman, Sir John Chisholm, now chairs the Medical Research Council and is executive chairman of QinetiQ, previously part of the publicly owned Defence Evaluation and Research Agency.

No doubt he is an able manager; he is certainly a canny investor. Following its privatisation, Chisholm's £129,000 shareholding rose to £26 million. What balance between public service and private profit will he model for higher education? What vision of universities' role in their communities will he articulate?

"To get rich is glorious," said Deng Xiaoping, the late Chinese leader. The recently resurrected Peter Mandelson famously agrees. So, no doubt, does Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. By this criterion, the members of Denham's user group will do universities proud: our "users" are the CEOs of Pearson Publishing and of "a small business in the creative sector".

The director of the National Theatre is there to reflect "art and culture", and the "public-sector viewpoint" will be provided by the chief of the London Development Agency's Olympic Legacy Directorate. Universities' users, it seems, consist only of representatives of glittering business and cultural elites.

No "user" will speak for local communities; none for schools or hospitals; none for the old; none for charities or the voluntary sector; none for social movements; none for ethnic minorities; none for ordinary working people; none even for local authorities.

All this is, I regret, in keeping with recent government approaches to the role of higher education. Universities must not just play a part in "driving up" skills: serving the economy is now their raison d'etre.

Only the bravest university vice-chancellors and university councils with the best endowments try to implement broader, more humane visions. They receive scant support from government.

A recent case in point is the ending of public funding for adult students taking "equivalent or lower-level qualifications" - unless, of course, they enrol on specified (largely vocational) courses.

We may hope that Denham's user group will take a broader and more humane view than their backgrounds suggest is likely. Perhaps, as the wealthy pocket their City bonuses and ordinary people pay the price, he will consider whether the rich and powerful really have all the best tunes.

Perhaps he will remember that a Labour Government should speak for the poor, the excluded, the weak - workers by hand and by brain - as well as Mandelson's messmates. Perhaps a vision of R. H. Tawney and other earlier educationists will come to him in a dream. Let us hope.
Postscript :

John Holford is Robert Peers professor of adult education, University of Nottingham.

Ethics and partnerships, where is the OU ethical policy?

From Society Matters
Ethics and partnerships: the OU and the St Athan Military Academy
The Open University now boasts a Centre for Ethics and includes ethical teaching in its curriculum, but it does not yet have an ethical policy guiding its corporate partnerships. The recent link between the OU and the Metrix
consortium has led to protests in Wales and may result in far wider ramifications for the institution
I too believe that universities and their staff should aim to encourage students to ‘think ethically’ and equip them to
confront the great dilemmas and paradoxes of our time. Vice Chancellor Brenda Gourley Independent Open Eye, 1 July 2008

Life at the OU in Wales took a new turn recently, with demonstrations against the University’s involvement in a military training consortium taking place outside our building. Over the past year, the ‘Stop the St Athan Military Academy Campaign’ has been publicizing and attacking the OU’s involvement in the Metrix consortium, which followed its success in being awarded a government contract to run a training agency for all of the British armed forces at St Athan in South Glamorgan.
The OU is a member of the consortium, along with some major arms manufacturers, including QinetiQ and Raytheon. Raytheon
manufactures Tomohawk and Patriot missiles, and missiles capable of carrying cluster bombs; QinetiQ hit the headlines with
criticisms by the National Audit Office of the process whereby, in the privatization of DERA, the responsible civil servants became
multi-millionaires overnight.
Thousands of training jobs from around the UK will be moved to St Athan, just outside Cardiff, where up to 5,500 jobs will be
created. This figure is one that fluctuates and is contested, but it is claimed that the St Athan Military Academy, costing £15 billion,
will be the largest ever public-sector project in Wales. The project is welcomed by local MPs and Welsh Assembly
Members, by the Welsh Assembly Government and by all of the major political parties in Wales. Nonetheless, several Plaid Cymru
members of the National Assembly for Wales have spoken against it, and there are a small but vociferous number of people in Wales opposed to the militarization of the economy. Anti-militarism has been a core element of the nationalist struggle since its inception, and is a perspective shared by many key figures in public life.
Does this new partnership fit with the mission of the OU – to create and enhance life opportunities? There are concerns about any
institution’s associations with the arms trade. Jennie Lee, one of the main founders of the OU, was firm in her stand against arms, in that she was against the UK acquiring a nuclear deterrent.
Various UK universities (including St Andrews and several Cambridge colleges) have adopted ethical investment policies.
University College London, under pressure from students and alumni, is among those that are considering doing so. The School of
Oriental and African Studies and Goldsmiths, University of London and Bangor University have withdrawn investment from arms
companies. The OU has still to decide on whether it needs to devise clear and fully transparent ethical guidelines to steer its business partnerships.
Other institutions have been more forthright. The Norwegian state pension fund, which includes its petroleum fund, and Liverpool City Council are among the bodies that have disinvested from Raytheon, on the basis of its implication in war crimes and killing civilians in Iraq and Lebanon.
Of course, military technology and the armed forces are involved in defence as well as attack, and there are plenty of us who subscribe to notions of ‘just wars’. But the plan is to train not just British troops, but armed forces from around the world. The idea of training troops for the Burmese government is more controversial than training British troops.
Others do not share this political or moral concern, but object on pragmatic grounds: that the OU risks tainting its brand. In a sense,
the greatest asset of the OU is its brand. The brand isn’t just a logo but is a reputation, and the reputations of organizations increasingly are linked to their ethical and environmental policies and practices.
We only have to look to Nike, McDonald’s, Tesco, the Body Shop and the Co-operative Bank to see the centrality of ‘the brand’ to
business performance. Across the economy and around the world there is a huge growth in the ‘corporate social responsibility’ agenda. In one sense, this is recognized by the OU, which recently launched a Level 1 course on Ethics in Real Life and takes very seriously its commitment to development in Africa. At the same time, it is in partnership with the World Bank to develop a private university in Pakistan, in collaboration with Tesco regarding using clubcard points to pay course fees (see Society Matters No.10), and is now linked with the Metrix consortium.

This suggests the need for an ethical, environmental and corporate esponsibility framework for the OU’s relationships with other
organizations. With its deservedly high standing, the OU brand is of enormous benefit to us all. The good reputation of the OU is an asset and needs to be defended actively.
In response to the University’s involvement in the Metrix consortium, the Open University Branch of the University and
College Union (OUBUCU) has formulated a set of ethical guidelines to be applied to the future selection of its strategic partnerships with external organizations. The guidelines set out criteria regarding the arms trade, ecological sustainability, animal welfare and corporate responsibility to ‘filter’ out partnerships which may commercially damage the University’s brand. At the time of going to press, a paper setting out the arguments for their implementation has been presented to the Vice-Chancellor and the Branch awaits a response to its suggestion that a forum be established between union and management to discuss the guidelines. The union believes the University cannot be financially successful in the future unless it is committed to an ethical approach to partnerships.

http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/about-the-faculty/society-matters/society-matters.php

Qinetiq 394 university projects

Arms Trade Report criticises York for taking on 59 Military Projects
By Jonathan Fransman Nouse.co.uk - http://www.nouse.co.uk

QinetiQ - 394 university projects
QuinetiQ is a leading international defence and security technology company. It acts as the leading supplier of defence research to the British government which provides half its turnover. It also provides technological and security solutions to clients from both the civil and public sectors. The government recently sold a majority stake in the firm to a US private equity firm

See alson http://ouandarmsdealers.blogspot.com/