LONDON
The government should provide more money for higher education but should not meddle or try to use Britain’s universities to enhance social mobility, a senior official at the University of Cambridge told other educators Wednesday.
Vice-Chancellor Alison Richard called for greater government funding for Britain’s colleges and universities, warning that the United States, China and many other countries spend a far higher percentage of their national wealth on schooling.
“As institutions charged with education research and training, our purpose is not to be construed as that of handmaidens of industry, implementers of the skills agenda, or indeed engines for promoting social justice,” she said, calling for the “independence and autonomy” of Britain’s universities to be maintained.
Richard was speaking at the opening of the annual Universities U.K. conference, held this year at Cambridge to focus on questions of funding. She emphasized the need for universities to be free to set their own educational and financial policies without outside interference.
Her comments came as Britain’s most prestigious universities, Cambridge and Oxford, are under increasing pressure to admit more students from Britain’s state-supported schools rather than relying on the country’s more exclusive, and expensive, private schools.
She said a university’s core mission was to educate and lead research, not provide social mobility. But by carrying out this mission and diversifying the makeup of the student body, the university does end up playing an important role in enhancing social justice, she said.
