Cuts to University Funding Deemed Prudent

England's University budgets are being cut by £449m, leading student places to be reduced by an estimated 6,000 in the next academic year.

Teaching budgets are being reduced by £215m, a cut in real terms of 1.6% on 2009-10 levels and research funding is being frozen, while the buildings budget is cut by 15%.

Commenting, Daniel Fell, Head of Policy at Doncaster Chamber, said:

“We are all aware of the requirement to reduce the budget deficit; as such, this announcement was inevitable. We wholly welcome the restraint shown by the Government in simply freezing the budget for research on a temporary basis. Academic research conducted in the UK is of crucial importance to the future of the economy – our business manifesto for 2010 calls for the Government to protect research spending in areas such as health, defence and education.

The decision to make most of the cost savings by reducing the budget for buildings is both prudent and necessary.

Although the decision to reduce the number of student places is regrettable, we believe that education should be tailored to the individual, not the one size fits all policy that expects 50% of the population to attend University. Business, as the end user of the education system, wants its future workforce to be work-ready, possessing the business skills necessary to perform in the job from the first day. Hence, we welcome the inception of bodies such as the National Apprenticeship Service, as a positive move to up-skill the workforce of tomorrow by preparing them, not just in terms of knowledge, but softer skills desired by employers.”