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Kim Howells gets two out of four

This sums up the case for university top-up fees very nicely:

The new higher education minister, Kim Howells, today stormed into the education debate with a warning for universities that top-up fees would create a “cut throat” market.

Wow, a rabid free marketeer telling the universities that they are going to have to get their act together, not because little old he merely says so or else, but because there is now a market out there.

But it turns out that Kim Howells is against this market:

In his first speech since joining the Department for Education and Skills, Mr Howells risked the ire of his boss, Charles Clarke, with a series of negative remarks about the direction education policy had taken since he was last an education minister in 1998.

This is a classic case of something that happens a lot, namely a good idea being spread by someone who vehemently disagrees with it.

And here comes another combination of rightness and wrongness:

He questioned the government’s focus on the economic benefits of education and admitted that sending his children to university had left him “broke”.

In characteristically colourful language, Mr Howells told an audience at the University of Westminster in London today: “We’ve become very utilitarian in the department for education. I’m in a lucky position of having returned after six or seven years.

“Learning for learning’s sake is something we should criticise very warily. People want to learn simply because learning is wonderful and it’s the second best thing I know in the world.”

Howells has a point about learning for learning’s sake. But just because something is wonderful doesn’t mean that other people ought to pay for it. I think that classical music is wonderful, and governments around Europe pay a lot of people to entertain me at way below what it might otherwise cost me. But is this right, just because I get wonderfulness rather than usefulness?

There is also the fact that, I think, classical music would actually be very different and much better if it was not subsidised at all. Ditto education, especially of the “wonderful” sort.

The proportion of “wonderful” education that is now subsidised is now declining rapidly, thanks to the Internet, which is all part of how much more wonderful it has now become.

3 comments to Kim Howells gets two out of four

  • Andrew Duffin

    “I think, classical music would actually be very different and much better if it was not subsidised at all.”

    Leaving aside the was/were argument for a moment…

    Well I don’t know. Different, yes. Better?

    If the example of Classic FM is anything to go by, whatl you’d get would be single movements of all the standard lollipops, introduced by some smarmy git who knew nothing about it.

    Of course, I am not making a case for subsidy (who would dare, in this forum?), I am just disagreeing with you.

  • Ken

    “He questioned the government’s focus on the economic benefits of education and admitted that sending his children to university had left him “broke”. ”

    Which brings up the question of why parents are supposed to be paying the bills for their adult children in the first place. When you go to college on someone else’s dime, whether it be the government or your own parents, your estimation of what is a worthwhile investment and what is not changes, and not for the better. If you must earn or borrow the money, you will look for profitable investments and shun losing investments. If someone else is paying the bills, losing investments that are fun become much more attractive, and an awful lot of money ends up being wasted.

    And yes, switching to a tuition-charging model is a good first step. A good second step is to forget the whole “top-up” business and charge full price.

  • W

    All I only would like to know is whether Illuminati or masonic core is present amongst top-ranked classical music stars these days, how the real careers are being made, what is really happening behind, behind closed doors, who is a gay or bisexual, who is being pushed….come on, you all cannot deny the simple fact, Mozart’s and Beethoven’s music is so pure yet the two man were somehow connected to that darker side…..and what’s now happening on stage? who’s for real Capucon, who gave him the Kreisler Stradivarius?, who’s Gringolts, what’s behind Mutter-Previn marriage, who’s for real Kissin….Just have a moment to look at all this….