Reaching Higher
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Editor John Osmond Associate Editor Rhys David Administration Helen Sims-Coomber and Clare Johnson summer 2005 Design WOOD&WOOD Design Consultants. wood2.com To advertise Telephone 029 2066 6606 reaching higher as the deal reached in the National Assembly in June on University top-up fees an attempt to produce a sustainable, holistic approach w to higher education funding? Or was it an opportunity seized by the Institute of Welsh Affairs Opposition parties to ambush Rhodri Morgan’s minority government? The St Andrew’s House analysis on pages 32-34 by Professor Teresa Rees, chair of the Assembly 24 St Andrew’s Crescent Government’s Review group on Higher Education Funding and Student Cardiff CF10 3DD Support, suggests that it was a bit of both. Telephone 029 2066 6606 E-mail [email protected] There are some good things in the package. In future fees will only be Web www.iwa.org.uk payable after students have graduated and can afford to pay, at about £8 a week on a £20,000-a-year income. However, as Professor Rees argues, the real The IWA is a non-aligned barrier to students entering higher education is the large debts they incur in independent think-tank and paying their maintenance costs. The introduction of a Welsh bursary scheme, research institute, based in Cardiff with branches in north and to be targeted at the less well-off students, is a welcome, partial response to west Wales, Gwent, Swansea Bay this problem. and London. Members (annual subscription £30) receive agenda three On the face of it the deal also addressed the chronic under funding that is times a year, the Gregynog Papers, and threatening to destablise Welsh higher education. It is estimated that there is can purchase reports at half price. a £100 million-a-year gap between higher education spending in Wales and the rest of the UK. The Assembly Government has undertaken to examine this branches problem before the end of the current budget round. But from where is the North Wales Secretariat extra money to be found? It is widely acknowledged that a thriving university c/o Andrew Parry sector is essential if we are to build the much sought after knowledge-based North East Wales Institute (NEWI) economy in Wales. Plas Goch Mold Wrexham LL11 2AW Telephone 01792 354243 Gwent Secretariat The Assembly’s decision that Welsh domiciled students will be eligible for a c/o Geoff Edge £1,800 grant to offset the rise in fees from the present £1,200 to £3,000 a year University of Wales Newport will only exacerbate this general funding problem. Undoubtedly the move will Caerleon Campus P O Box 179 Newport NP18 3YG encourage Welsh- students to study in Wales and thereby promote retention Telephone 01633 432005 of more of our graduates. However, the estimated cost will be £32 million in West Wales Secretariat the first year in 2006-07, rising to £50 million in the second. These are c/o Robin Lewis estimates since the grant will also have to be given to students within the EU The MAGSTIM Co. Ltd outside the rest of the UK and no-one knows how many more will study in Spring Gardens Whitland Carmarthenshire SA4 0HR Wales as a result. Moreover, beyond 2010 the £3,000 cap on student fees in Telephone 01792 354243 England will be lifted and most observers believe they will then rise Swansea Bay Secretariat substantially. c/o Marc Clement Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department The Assembly has decided to underwrite top-up fees for Welsh students and University of Wales Swansea Singleton Park Swansea SA2 8PP to demand that an extra £100 million be found for the higher education. Telephone 01792 295489 However, it has made no accompanying recommendation on where the money is to be found. The worry is that some other part of Assembly Wales in London c/o Welsh Development Agency Government’s education budget will be raided. Can it be justified to reduce 1 6th Floor Tower 42 spending on early years, primary or secondary education in order to fund 25 Old Broad Street London EC2M 1HY deferred top-up fees for largely middle class university students who can Telephone 020 7222 2822 afford to pay? summer 2005 upfront 35 geography of opportunity 4 destination unknown bruce katz describes the In the wake of France and evolution of American Holland's rejection of the neighbourhood policy and Union's forward march, chris what it could mean for Wales harvie asks: whatever happened to regional Europe? 37 gwynfor dafydd wigley looks at the career of ‘the greatest Welsh 10 news statesman of the 20th century’ politics & policy economy culture and 25 virtual parliament communications john osmond unpacks 39 buzz factor yvette vaughan jones says the recent White Paper culture is the driver of the extending the Assembly’s new economy powers 29 the new centralism kevin morgan and stevie upton query whether merging the social policy Quangos into the Assembly e 12 welsh in the family g a Government will achieve the 46 out of reach u elaine davies g n desired results nic wheeler offers policy a describes the work L e of Twf in building a options to deal with the crisis h t Y 32 reality cheque f bilingual Wales of housing affordability in the R o O e teresa rees argues that 42 labour flexibility National Parks. r T u S t an evidence base should eurfyl ap gwilym examines R u 15 conversing with F E / V english inform student funding the case for and against 50 learning how to learn O h t C i decisions regional pay differentials shan richards outlines the a margaret deuchar argues I r main features of the new y that we have every reason to l o be confident about the co- Foundation Phase early years d o f existence of Welsh with its curriculum being developed y D dominant neighbour for Welsh schools 17 welsh art ivor davies weighs in on the debate over a National Gallery 2 21 venetian odyssey wiard sterk reports on a visit to the 2005 Biennale Cover: Sally and Arwyn Jones, from Denbigh, with their small son Owain present a key example of where the future of the language lies – ensuring transmission between the generations. Arwyn is a Welsh speaker, while Sally is not but determined that the language should be past on. Arwyn speaks Welsh with Owain all the time and now Sally finds she is picking it up as well. newsflash coming up… • IWA National Eisteddfod Lecture 2005. Cyfansoddi Ewrop: Heaethu Ffiniau (Creating a New Europe: Enlarging Our Borders), Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas, National Eisteddfod at Y Faenol, near Caernarfon, Tuesday 3 August, in Y Stiwdio at 12 noon. Lecture to be delivered in Welsh with simultaneous translation. For other Creu Cyfle-Cultural Explosion events at the Eisteddfod see page 10 • Gwent Branch Day Conference and Lunch The Hidden Economy of Rural Wales. 29 September 2005 Coleg Gwent, Usk Keynote speaker: Proffessor Terry Marsden, Cardiff University. £50 for Conference and lunch • Cardiff Lunch. Social Innovation and Change with guest speaker Geoff Mulgan, Director of the Young Foundation and former policy adviser environment 61 blue sky research at No 10. Thistle Hotel, marc clement explains Cardiff. Friday 30 53 climate change how Swansea University September. £30 (£27.50 Faced with crushing is getting to grips with for IWA members) global threats Life Science, the most fertile paul flynn says we source of technology transfer • West Wales Branch need a paradigm shift in the world Dinner, with guest to change the way we run speaker Adam Price MP our economy for Carmarthen East and the last word Dinefwr, Haliwell Centre, Trinity College, 55 cherished heartland 64 peter stead peter midmore on a search Carmarthen. Friday for a vision for the future of 7th October 7.00pm science upland Wales just published… 57 when sugar is not so sweet • Wales on the Web Gregynog Paper by Anthony Campbell and Andrew Green, Stephanie Matthews National Librarian of 3 reveal the startling Wales, £7.99 discoveries they have made about lactose intolerance more information: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recorded or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher, Institute of Welsh Affairs. ISSN 1464-7613 www.iwa.org.uk upfront destination unknown In the wake of France and Holland’s rejection of the Union’s forward march, chris harvie asks: whatever happened to regional Europe? between the West and the former Comecon. Then the financial preparations for the Euro in 2000 repatriated power from the regions to the nation-states. The period 1989-91 also coincided with a series of ideological and technological changes which went far beyond those of 1917-21. Some re-awoke deep strategic issues, others challenged social doctrine. On the whole regionalism – as evidenced by the successful ‘Rhenish’ (that is, social-market) capitalism model that flourished for a nanosecond in Britain in 1994 as ‘stakeholding’ – has coped pretty well. The problem has lain with the national and supra-national level, with gung-ho militarists and fiddled facts, an over-mighty media, and oligarchies more responsive to plutocratic interests than to pressure from below. “The sub-nationalisms which flourish in Catalonia, Scotland national life and character and some German Lander relate to the wider crises of In 1893 an Oxford don turned Australian politician, identity which have affected all member states … the last Charles Henry Pearson, produced a book that caused a time this happened on so wide a scale was in 1917-22.” This furore then, and seems an uncannily accurate forecast was Keith Middlemass writing in 1995, and seeing – fairly now.