‘Universities must protect free speech’
Cambridge’s vice-chancellor tellsells Simon Heffer why he favours openness over ‘no-platforming’ g’
Stephen Toope is the first non-Briton in the 800year history of Cambridge University to be its vice-chancellor. Since he assumed office last October, shortly before his 60th birthday – and following a distinguished career in Canadian universities teaching international law and international relations – the institution has retained its position in the Complete University Guide 2019 as the best in the UK.
“One has to be alert to the successes of Cambridge and not imagine one can come in and radically change an 800-year old institution,” says Prof Toope.
But his honeymoon was shortened – first, by the prospect of industrial action by dons over pension rights; then, last week, Sam Gyimah, the universities minister, announced that the government intends to ban “no-platforming” in educational institutions, following attempts by student groups to ban speakers with whose views they disagree – and possibly to fine universities who fail to uphold the e rules.
Prof Toope has s no time for “no-platforming” ” either. For him, universities are about discussion without fear or favour. He says he has “an agenda of openness – openness to talent from wherever it is to be found, from undergraduates to the most senior professorial appointment. Openness to trying to explore the greatest questions that face the nation and humanity – which sounds grand, but Cambridge has done that in the past. That ranges from infectious disease prevention and control to challenges facing democracy in the Western world, to explorations of the origins of the universe.”
This requires “openness to genuine debate. Universities are where big questions are explored, and where challenging issues are debated.” This is refreshingly at od odds with the insidious campaign t to suppress free speech on som some campuses. “I am absolutel absolutely committed to the idea that universities are places wher where free debate has to happen and an free speech has to be protect protected.
“That doesn doesn’t extend to inciting hatred. hatred But universities have to be places where you do feel f discomforted at times because the ideas ar are genuinely challen challenging to you. If you di dislike or despise an ide idea, then it’s impor important that you engag engage, challenge and resist resist.”
Co Countering the rise of no no-platforming is not th the only battle Prof Toope is fighting on campu campus. He and his fellow vice-chancellors v have just ju had to manage a strike – now suspended – by dons do over reduced pension pensio entitlements that threatened the progress of thousands of undergraduates taking examinations next term. Some dons are saying the fight is not over, and the right to resume action in the future is reserved.
Given Cambridge’s superior resources, shouldn’t the university opt out of the national pension system and set up its own? “Turns out, it’s not easy to do that,” says Prof Toope in a calm, measured tone that seems to be his trademark. “The difficulty is that when you are locked into a private pension scheme, you have to buy yourself out. And with a defined benefit scheme, that is hugely expensive – we estimate up to £2billion. So unless things really collapsed, that’s not a likely option.”
The formerly generous pension was a compensation for the comparatively low pay (“by global standards”) of highly qualified dons. “I am very worried about the low level of academic pay in the United Kingdom,” said Prof Toope. “We’re losing people to German universities, to Swiss universities, to Chinese universities.”
One means to retain academic staff would be to charge a market rate for tuition, and raise funds to support those who cannot contemplate the far higher levels of debt this would entail, I suggest. “That’s the system from which I benefited at Harvard as an undergraduate,” Prof Toope replies. “My whole academic career was paid for by other people through bursaries and scholarships, for which I am deeply grateful. But such a system would require very high fees and much more support through philanthropy than even our current fundraising campaign is going to generate.”
Prof Toope is also troubled by standards of general knowledge among students, which are not what they were 30 years ago when he was a doctoral student at Cambridge.
“You cannot correct all those problems at the moment of entry to university. We should be driving improvements in the system of secondary education, both public and private. It’s got to involve parents, it’s got to involve governments, it’s got to involve teachers and teachers’ unions.
“There has to be a fairly substantial investment and rethink of how secondary education is pursued within the UK, because objective measures are showing standards are not being maintained as well as they should be. We are looking at options that do build a bridge from secondary schools to the university.”
He had a letter from a girl in Stoke-on-Trent with a conditional offer from Cambridge who failed to achieve the right grades. “She’d had to go to four different schools to study four different A-levels. Their schools simply don’t have the capacity to prepare them.”
He says Cambridge has opened 18 centres around the country to help students identify subjects about which they are passionate, and to help them to read more widely, “above their curriculum and do work that can be assessed by dons, to get them thinking outside the framework of the present curriculum”. This complements summer schools and outreach work in the state sector, and is all aimed at making teenagers not just aspire to Cambridge, but to develop the intellectual curiosity and drive that will give them a chance of winning a place. “I fundamentally believe that the role of a teacher is to be a guide and a mentor through learning – it is never simply to dictate and have people write down what you are dictating.”
He interprets government higher education policy as “a desire to ensure that students are receiving what the Government describes as ‘value for money’ in their education”. This entails “more reporting on student satisfaction and student support, and the application of consumer protection rules for students”. He agrees this is a concerning “utilitarian view” but not one that is peculiar to the present government: “We have been in a process for 15 to 20 years of moving towards the notion that students are primarily consumers and that
‘My whole academic career was paid for by other people – and I am deeply grateful’
universities are primarily economic agents. Education is not about being told something; education is a mutual activity between a guide and a learner, not a consumer. In the end, it’s about growing the mind and the capacities.
“I hope within the next few years we can begin to change the discourse about what it is our universities are doing. It is not just about value for money, it’s about what sort of values a university is designed to uphold and project to the wider society.”
What does he make of the target, introduced by the Blair government but unquestioned since, to have 50per cent of young people going to a university? “Targets are arbitrary. I am a firm believer in diversity of opportunities in an education system,” he says.
“The polytechnics that were changed into universities are not actually the same type of institution as Cambridge. It’s not to say they are bad or they’re worse, but they serve a different function. Forms of apprenticeship and technical education are extremely important for our society.
“We’ve got to get away from an idea that this is about an elite and a non-elite. It’s about ensuring that people who have different types of abilities and interests can explore them in an education system diverse enough for them to find a place. You can be intelligent and not academic.”