BEAUTIFUL MINDS?

SOME THOUGHTS ON ISSUES FACING HIGHER EDUCATION

9 DECEMBER 2002

GEOFFREY COPLAND

UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER

It is a great pleasure to have been invited here today to address this conference.  I do so with some trepidation as most of you in the audience know far more about this subject than I do, but I will draw on my experiences over the years, most recently as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Westminster and Chair of the Universities UK Learning, Teaching and Employment Strategy Group.

Let me reminisce for a moment.  In 1969 I was appointed as a lecturer in Physics in the University of London. I did something that was not fashionable at that time by volunteering to attend a course for new lecturers given by the Institute of Education.  Much of what was presented there is long forgotten but I still remember clearly a talk by Nicholas Malleson, then Director of the University of London Health Service on student health and well being.  This made me sit up and think that perhaps the rather sheltered life I had led as a student and then part-time tutor in the University of Oxford had perhaps not really prepared me to face the responsibilities which I had as an academic to students and the problems they might face.  That influenced my career and I subsequently worked closely with Nick’s wife Jane who was a student counsellor from whom I learned much, as I have from other counsellors with whom I have worked over the years.

Now over 30 years on, have the issues changed?

In some ways yes, as the population in higher education has grown and become slightly more representative of the community as a whole, but in other ways no.  Our students have higher levels of achievement and have higher aspirations than the population as a whole.  Now we have more, but as Ministers regularly remind us not enough, students from the lower socio-economic groups who are completely new to the world of higher education and its cultures.  I would remind Ministers that our student population is diverse.  It is disappointing that the strident debates about student funding, and particularly the DfES Consultation Document released in mid November give the impression that higher education students are simply full-time undergraduates or research students.  Let me remind you that there is an increasingly large body of students who study part-time, also study at taught postgraduate level and many are mature, not new from school or having just taken a gap year.  We hear too little about these students yet they make up over 50 % of the student population in higher education.  Counselling services know about them and the particular set of issues that they present.

So let me try to embrace all students in what I say.  Students enter higher education for a range of motives and these can in themselves lead to the student being at greater risk as their studies develop.  Some do so because of intrinsic interest in their chosen field.  For some it is a clear career choice, sometimes not well chosen.  For some it is just something one does because that is what is expected to be the path from school into adulthood, without any real motivation beyond having a good time and expecting to gain a good job.  For some it is an attempt to lift themselves from their current positions and to gain a degree or postgraduate experience for career enhancement.  For some it is because it is expected of them by their family even if they have no motivation to study.  For some it is an easy way to leave home and launch into independence.  And for most it is a combination of several of these factors.

The pressures on students of whatever level and background are now very high. They are expected to succeed and they have high personal and family expectations of what they will achieve.  For the students in their late teens from school, most are going to be away from direct parental influence for the first time and there is much growing up to do.  For mature students they are probably living locally and have family responsibilities and if studying part-time, may have significant work commitments as well.  What they all have in common is the need to establish themselves in a new and competitive environment often without the personal support systems that they have used, perhaps unconsciously in the past.

All students are now well aware of their financial stake in higher education.  I knew as a student that whilst I could probably have fallen back on my parents for limited financial support, I did not want to.  I also knew that as the first person in my family to go to university, I had a lot of parental expectation for achievement on my shoulders.  That I think will not have changed for first generation students.

I do not want to enter the debate on student finance though that underlies much of the attitudes and worries of students but let no-one be under any illusion that students, or not the ones I know, do not feel intensely the burdens of finance.  We hear suggestions that students are not really hard up, but that they incur excessive drinking and leisure costs.  Some do, but that is not the norm.  Students take paid work whilst studying, often excessive amounts, in order to pay rent and basic living costs.  I hear of students who have to decide between coming into university or earning some few pounds to be able to eat.  The more we, rightly, reach out to lower income students from families with no experience or interest in studying, the more we need to be aware that these are unsure, often unsupported and under funded as they approach higher education.  They take themselves out of their social groups and try to establish themselves in a really rather alien world.  They have sets their sights high and want to succeed.

What they need in this strange world is a sense of stability and worth.  So what do they find on coming into higher education in 2002?  They find that staff are also under pressure and in many cases anxious about the future.  We hear constant messages that despite the achievements of recent yeas in delivering very effectively the government’s agenda, of improving quality in teaching and research and widening participation, higher education is in some sense not fit for the challenges of the future and has to change. Many staff across the system feel undervalued, underpaid and under-recognised for their efforts. The decline in the unit of public funding in higher education over the past 15 years means there are more students for each member of staff to deal with, class sizes have increased vastly.  All staff, academic and support, are under increased pressure to deliver not just teaching but also research and the accountability burden faced by us all has grown immensely without increased resources to manage it.  So teaching staff have less time to spend with individual students, administrative staff are also under increased pressure and are expected not only to manage student administration but act as debt collectors as well.  So the student who may have some problem which may be small at the outset will find it increasingly difficult to find anyone with the time to give reassurance and advice.  The recent reports on Student Services and the Careers Services published by Universities UK and SCOP, with support from DfES illustrate many of these issues and how HEIs are making strenuous efforts to provide supportive services to students.  There is much good work going on and we need to build on good practice but we do need more resources to do this, particularly where we are dealing with significant proportions of non-traditional students, where a recent study shows that the costs of giving effective support to enable these students to become sufficiently well established to have a good chance of success is some 35% above the costs of supporting the traditional, well prepared, student.

We live in a society where, outside the education system, many people feel under greater pressure to succeed and greater uncertainty about the future.  This brings its own problems and greater levels of stress and stress related illnesses.  If we add to that general picture, the intrinsic stresses of student life, it is no surprise to me that we are seeing greater levels of mental health related problems in higher education.  A recent study on student suicide issues (to be published by Universities UK and SCOP) reminds us that the age groups most represented in the student body matches the age groups where suicide rates are highest. Major risk factors include social isolation, depression, schizophrenia, drug and alcohol misuse. The relatively high incidence of parental marriage break-up once children have left home for university can affect some students very badly, possibly through feelings of guilt.  These are all key risk areas for our students. There is also evidence that in relatively close communities direct or indirect exposure to suicide can lead to increased risk of suicidal behaviour. Such behaviour is the extreme but mental ill-health can manifest itself in many ways.  Fortunately our student services and our academic support systems serve our students well and frequently identify and help those who are showing suicidal tendencies or thoughts. That is a great credit the dedication and care shown by you and your colleagues. But with the increased pressures faced by higher education staff, there has to be a risk that the student in trouble may not be identified early enough to prevent the problem becoming more serious.  Sadly there are casualties, fortunately many of them only temporary but not always. Our higher education system is fortunate in having professionals who can help in difficult situations. 

A student who develops mental health problems or has some which manifest themselves when under stress can be disruptive to their own studies but also to other students.  More students with a history of mental health problems are and will be coming into universities.  This will have implications for all of us in ensuring that they get the most out of their time in higher education. People with mental health problems can come from the brightest in the population and there is no correlation between mental illness and academic ability. But sometimes students with these problems fear being judged as being academically inferior because of their problems.  We can develop strategies to contain the problems but they are never easy.  One of the good aspects of the modern student is that they will rally round to help those in difficulties but patience does wear thin if problems persist.  The obligations on institutions from the Special Education Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) give additional responsibilities for higher education which require careful attention.

I have heard it suggested at times that we are too supportive of students in respect of counselling and student services.  After all, the argument goes, if we are educating students to become responsible graduates when they leave university, then they need to learn to face up to difficulties on their own, or build their own networks for support.  “The nanny state has no place in higher education”.  I hear less of this now, or maybe I am surrounded by like-minded people who share my belief that students, for all their professed maturity, are often vulnerable.  The nature of student life and the need to be self-motivating might, on the one hand, suggest that success will only come from facing and overcoming problems independently.  On the other hand, because students have to be self-motivating, they can become paralysed into inactivity by problems as there is no-one setting immediate targets to be achieved.  In the large student class sizes it is easy for some students, particularly in classroom based studies to become invisible so that their absence is not noticed until some assessment deadline is missed.  We set up tutorial arrangements which should pick up those who are opting out, but these are not always effective.  Don’t we all recognise the problems of missing a deadline or not planning work properly so that an essay crisis, or speech writing crisis occurs. Most of us can work through that, and can find ways of managing work loads to cope, but the inexperienced student, weighed down with self-doubt about ability to cope academically or socially, worried about mounting debt and having missed some classes, so having fallen behind, really does need someone to talk to.  A helpful tutor may solve the problem.  It may require someone independent of the academic structure to help, but the problems may be far more deep-seated than the initial presentation.  That requires skilled help and this is where the Counselling services really come into play.  There are students who become suicidal as the problems mount. There may be academic casualties who simply opt out and carry the sense of failure for life.  Trained and responsive counselling services with good referral routes can literally rescue someone who is in danger.  Universities gain in many ways by helping those to rebuild their confidence and ability to deal with stress.  At its crudest, every student who does not drop out is worth thousands of pounds.

We have a responsibility to provide a responsive and responsible support system to those that we welcome into our institutions, and let us not forget, those who work in them. It may be that the answer for some is to leave higher education or suspend study for a period.  We have a responsibility to help people make that decision as well.  I have a profound respect for the excellent work that our counselling services do.  I hope that you take heart from the recent attention that has been paid to your work. Thank you for all that you do to help our students and staff.

ã Geoffrey Copland/University of Westmister 2002