Duc Pham, chance professor of engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birmingham
By the time this article is in print, it is very much hoped that the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK will have been lifted—at least partially, if not fully—and life will have returned to normal for most people and organisations. Here, the term ‘normal’ has to be extrapolated to mean ‘new normal’, characterising a different state of equilibrium reached by a system after it has experienced a major step change. By all accounts, the COVID-19 crisis has imparted more than a major step change to British society. Like an earthquake of an unprecedented scale, COVID-19 has shaken the whole country to its core. The new equilibrium state is thus expected to be quite different from the pre-pandemic normal as we used to know it.
So, what would the new post-COVID-19 normal look like for higher education? There is no doubt that finances will become tighter than ever. According to Universities UK (UUK), the body made up of the heads of universities in the UK, the UK university sector could lose “£790 million from accommodation, catering and conference income as well as additional spend to support students learning online” in the current 2019–20 financial year1. The situation is direr in the next financial year, with institutions projecting a significant fall in international student numbers. In the extreme case of a 100 percent reduction, UUK predicts that the risks to fee income from international students will total £6.9 billion across the sector, although such an Armageddon-scale annihilation of the international student population is improbable.
Even if one takes the lower forecast of £1.85 billion in 2020–21 by the consultancy firm London Economics, as reported by Times Higher Education (THE)2, the loss of income from international students, including those from the European Union, will still be huge. The seriousness of the financial trouble ahead for UK higher education institutions (HEIs) is underlined by the extraordinary act of leaders of Imperial College London, King’s College London, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Manchester, who have voluntarily cut their own salaries by between 20 and 30 percent. The symbolism of these cuts is even more significant than the cuts themselves, heralding a new age of austerity for the university sector.
For the ordinary staff and students on the ground, austerity will mean that it is likely there will be a deterioration in services, a hiatus in campus development, a freeze on salaries and a moratorium on recruitment. This will unfortunately be the situation for the majority of institutions, with the real possibility even of job losses at some3. Lest you should think this is pure, baseless scaremongering, please refer to the aforementioned analysis by London Economics, which has estimated that 30,000 jobs could be lost in universities, with a further 30,000 in the local communities that form part of their ecosystems2.
The situation is, of course, not unique to the UK HEI sector. Indeed COVID-19 has similarly impacted higher education the world over. Although this is certainly no consolation, knowing that we are not alone can help us better handle the crisis. Granted, we will need to get used to the new normal characterised by people having to do more with less. At the same time, we can also seek to share knowledge and other resources freely with colleagues at different institutions at home and abroad. Building on the synergy and solidarity demonstrated during the darkest hours of the pandemic, we can collaborate more effectively with one another to address the challenges facing us all in the post- COVID-19 era. This way, we can look forward with confidence and optimism to the day when the new academic ‘normal’ will become normal again.
www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/mechanical-engineering/index.aspx
References
1Package of measures proposed to enable universities to play a critical role in rebuilding the nation [press release]. April 10, 2020. Universities UK.
Available at: https://bit.ly/3frxumY
2McKie, A. (2020). UK universities ‘face £2.6bn coronavirus hit with 30K jobs at risk’ [ press release]. April 23. Times Higher Education (THE).
Available at: https://bit.ly/2A2dg2N
3McKie, A. (2020). Coronavirus: Manchester staff ‘horrified’ by prospect of job cuts [ press release]. April 24. Times Higher Education (THE).
Available at: https://bit.ly/2yq80ps