- Conference
- 2025 National Higher Education Conference
- Date
- 10 October 2024
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes:
The expansion of university education which has taken place over the last few decades has changed the public perception of higher education. Many more people have family members at, or with aspirations of going to university than was the case in the 20th century, when higher education was perceived as only for the rich or an academically minded minority of society.
Although there is still a lot more that can and needs to be done to widen participation so that the least advantaged groups have equal access, the change has posed the questions – what are universities for, how should they be resourced and who should be benefitting from them?
Trade union members across the sector see universities as a public service, in the same way as pre-18 education, the NHS, local authorities etc. The evolution of higher education, with different institutions having different origins and traditions, has left a legacy of gender, race, disability, and class injustices that have flourished under unquestioned academic status and unreflective institutional rivalry.
The results of this have no place in a modern vision of higher education provision. This requires us, as members of this sector, to join together and collaborate for the purpose of equipping the workforce and public with the tools, skills, and equipment to successfully respond to the challenges of the present and future.
Conference believes:
• Universities should be properly nationalised, with genuine democratic control of how they’re run, by staff, students and the wider community. We can retain academic traditions, if we want to, but we don’t need unelected Vice-Chancellors and Principals on six-figure salaries and we don’t need the waste and bureaucracy of universities fighting each other for students and duplicated research.
• Universities can and should celebrate the reality that students from across the world want to study in the UK, and that diversity and a shared experience should be the driving force of international study, rather than the economic benefit.
• All public services should be provided free of charge to those who could benefit from them, and higher education should be no exception to this principle. Services should be run for public need, not private profit, and society can afford high quality education for all, if resources are diverted from the super-rich.
Conference calls on the Service Group Executive to:
1)Restate UNISON’s existing policy in favour of free education at all levels, to ensure that all members and potential members are aware of our vision for genuinely accessible public services.
2)Publicise our vision as widely as possible, linking the need to fund higher education provision adequately, with the need to ensure that those working across the sector are appropriately rewarded.