December 12, 2003	Friday	Shawwal 17, 1424

LONDON: Tony Blair says his student loans proposals — designed to meet a UK universities funding crisis — are a make or break issue and the outcome is far from sure.

Those famous visitors from outer space must be wondering what on earth the British prime minister is up to.

Tony Blair has a huge majority of 170 seats in the UK parliament, and yet he has recently given the impression of wanting to put his job on the line over the issue of funding for universities.

Blair famously declared, before coming into office, that his priority was “education, education, education” and his government has gone to great lengths to increase funding for state schools and kindergartens. Indeed sometimes Mr Blair and his finance minister Gordon Brown give the impression that in an ideal world they would send babies to school from birth.

Now the UK government has turned its attention to what is widely regarded as a crisis of funding for British universities. The crisis has been a long time in the making; it has been created by a pincer movement under which successive governments have expanded the number of university places while being unbelievably mean about funding, not least in regard to the salaries of university professors and lecturers. The government is embarrassed that British universities have been slipping down the world league tables, and is responding to academic calls for more resources.

Few quarrel with the need for more funds, although many wonder whether it makes sense to insist in a target of sending 50 per cent of the nation’s youth to university. A classic complaint is that “what we need are more plumbers.” It is considered politically incorrect to question these targets — although this has not stopped the opposition Conservatives from committing itself to such incorrectness.

Most people accept the case for higher funding. The real controversy is over how to do it. The Blair government has alighted on a system of so called “top up fees” under which the extra Pounds Sterling two billion would come from students themselves, not general taxation. Basically, they would have to repay loans after they had graduated and started work.—Dawn/The Observer News Service.