Howard offers bursaries to protect university subjects
The Conservatives have followed up Thursday’s announcement of plans to pay parents to stay at home to look after their young children with a fresh set of proposals on student funding.
Party leader Michael Howard promised on Friday morning to provide £20 million in bursaries per annum from 2009 to encourage students to study mathematics, chemistry, physics, engineering and some foreign languages at university.
The move comes after the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, suggested in September that money might be put aside to protect certain subjects.
Speaking at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the Conservative leader explained that this would be funded by scrapping the new Office for Fair Access (OFFA), scaling down the work of the Higher Education Funding Council and reducing the inspection regime.
” In too many institutions, the future of important subjects is under threat. Areas like maths, physics, engineering and chemistry are struggling to attract good students, and some universities have even closed departments because of the lack of interest in doing such subjects”, Mr Howard warned.
“The next Conservative Government will tackle this decline. We will fund 10,000 bursaries specifically designed to attract more, able young people to study our key sciences and to help reinforce the base of scientific expertise in this subject. Each bursary will be worth £2000 and will be payable on graduation”, he explained.
However, the other parties were sceptical about the Conservatives’ proposals.
Liberal Democrat education spokesman Phil Willis responded, “Michael Howard is tackling the problem far too late. He promises money to those who already have a strong interest in these subjects.”
Mr Willis argued that the real problem with these subjects is that pupils lose interest in them while at school.
“By the time they reach university, many young people have long given up on maths and science”, Mr Willis warned.
“The real challenge is to encourage pupils to continue studying maths and science post-16. By clinging on to the old A-Level system the Tories are simply encouraging pupils to stick with existing trends subjects rather than with those which the nation desperately needs.”
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Paul Boateng, also dismissed the Tory plans. “The gaping holes in Tory plans have widened this week. None of their plans add up. They could only pay for this week’s commitments by making deeper and more severe cuts to other public services”, he declared.
