Universities could be landed with massive financial penalties if they refuse to return to face to face teaching, the Universities Minister has warned.
Throwing down the gauntlet to the ‘stubborn minority’ of vice-chancellors and lecturers who are still working remotely, Michelle Donelan signalled her intention to ‘put boots on the ground’ by sending teams of inspectors to investigate staff attendance rates on campuses across Britain.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, she said: ‘We’re all enjoying the freedoms that the vaccine has enabled us to have.
‘Students and lecturers will be going to the pub, going out for meals, they’ll be going to parties, going to weddings, probably concerts, so it doesn’t actually make sense that they can’t then be in a lecture theatre.’
I’ve not heard a reasonable rationale for why we would want students to be on a second track to the rest of the population. In fact, I think it is really wrong.’
Ms Donelan said institutions that have failed to return to pre-pandemic levels of face to face teaching could ‘potentially be fined or could even lose the ability to access money from the student loan system’.
She added: ‘That would be the most serious ramification, but in the first instance there would be fines and we would expect their teaching methods to change.’
The first member of her family to go to university, Ms Donelan praised Britain’s higher education system, adding: ‘We’ve got some of the most iconic universities in the world.’
But she also spoke of her hope that the Government’s ‘world-first’ Lifelong Learning Entitlement plan – which will give individuals a loan entitlement to the equivalent of four years of post-18 education to use over their lifetime – will reshape the higher education system by allowing students to study for a degree in ‘modulised’ chunks at different stages of their lives.
‘At 18, you might think about what you want to do and think, “Actually I don’t need a three-year degree to do the job I want. I really want to get into industry quite quickly”, so you go and do three modules for one year,’ she said.
‘You get a job and later on you upskill and you reskill and you go back, so it creates this culture of lifelong learning which our current student finance system doesn’t allow. We’ll be the first country in the world to deliver this at scale.’
She also raised concerns over the National Union of Students after comments by its president Shaima Dallali in which she flippantly referred to a massacre of Jews.
Insisting the Government is prepared to sever ties with the NUS, she said: ‘The allegations that have been made against the NUS are deplorable and, when we look at this, this pattern of behaviour goes right the way back to 2005.
That to me is a big sign that the NUS themselves haven’t managed to get their house into order.
‘I think it’s appalling that Jewish students are having to contact me and say they are concerned about attending NUS events or concerned about behaviour on university campuses – and we’ve got to stop this.
I will be coming forward with a substantial package imminently on the Government’s approach to the NUS in regards and in response to this.’