Alarm grows as jobs to go at four more institutions

This government is going about making British Universities internationally competitive in the complete and utter wrong way. If universities were forced to cut their administration and financial management was assessed, our universities would perform much more efficiently. As it is, many British universities spend more than 50% of the staff costs on administration!

It's a globalised world. In Macao where I live we our Polytechnic Institute has a great need for specialists in all the areas that these people who are being axed are in. And the salaries are pretty good. Look further afield and be happy that you have abilities which are sought after elsewhere. Many are not so lucky.

@ Darren Grover The level of arrogance (and the casual illiteracy) of your post is astonishing. I trust that once you read it again you will be ashamed of yourself.

I agree with Darren Glover. More admin paper pushers in British universities than any where else in the Western world. Not unlike NHS where admin staff I found in an outpatient clinic outnumber the doctors and nurses. It is not beyond the bounds of technology to automate processes and cut the admin number down to release funds to lecturing and technical staff. Same argument for NHS.

I know the case of Warwick uni. The imminent closure is not caused by financial problems – it is a story of bad management and extreme arrogance. It is hard to compare all these cases or find one reason for closures. The crazy thing is that during the recession there should be more opportunities to study in order to improve qualifications that may lead to employment. It looks that the universities are not taking this on board.

@ An HE Administrator: The fact that your post is nothing but a personal jibe against a man who makes a relevant point, leads me to suspect that you too agree with him but are worried for your job as you are aware of its superfluosity, hence the bitter tone. In Sussex, at least, the main problem is not that the dept is closing, but the manner in which the decision was made (a similar story to Warwick, maybe?) - with no consultation of those whom it would affect. With the due consultations, the decision would surely have gone the other way and reason would have prevailed.

@Mark Interesting. It looks that there is more behind these closures than the eye can see. At Warwick the crisis has been caused by one person who thinks that she is unique, and cannot be replaced. How is this possible? Well, she happens to be a PVC. There was an investigation carried out but it was undertaken by one person - another PVC. No wonder the outcome was to close the department. Sussex and Warwick are of similar age, so perhaps this is why they share the same bad habits?

There are far too many universities in England. The post-92 universities think that they are also global players and scour around the world for students-any students. Home students are encouraged to come in with greatly reduced entry requirements. At the same time, we do not have top technical colleges for vocational training which is needed. This is largely left to local colleages. It is time for rationalisation of university education to preserve the standard of HE education in this country and to initiate joined up thinking. The universities ( the Russell Group + pre-92 kind) and govt seem to think that we should be competing with USA and Australia for students. We did it for years and sowed seeds for universities expansion willy nilly here. It is time that we considered that afterall, we taxpayers fund the universities and they owe to us the focus of being local for a time. These are the days of the Internet and we will still remain in touch with the rest of the world.

As an HE administrator who works in a research centre, I am shocked that Warwick would opt to close such a well respected centre. It takes years of hard work to gain the kind of standing and respect that the CTCCS enjoys and it is a loss for everyone when it closes. Very short-term thinking, possibly the University has been taken over by Chrysler executives.

I'm a 3rd year Undergraduate in the former Dept of Linguistics and English Language at Sussex. The closure of the subject is an entirely political top-down decision and there is a well-supported grass roots campaign in motion to reverse it. Linguistics at Sussex is rated 2nd only to Cambridge in the UK and has an international profile, (@ Too many universities: with an entry tarrif of AAA-AAB) but it has been systematically underfunded for years to serve a counteracademic Management agenda. In the same year that Linguistics becomes 'financially unviable' the new VC Michael Farthing awards himself a 42% pay increase to just over £222,000. Draw your own conclusions.

There has to be rationalisation in the two university divide. The pre-92 universities should be allowed to cluster themselves in subject areas, supplementing and complementing with close cooperation between them so that the American university type transfer credits system should be operated within each cluster. This would concentrate resources , avoids duplication and encouragse cooperation between univerities. The post-92 universities as polys were doing good job and that situation should return if necessary through strong govt direction through resource allocation by emphasis on vocational diplomas rather degrees. Currently the entry tariff to the latter is well below CCC, and in universities like London Met even failed A levels are encouraged to come in during clearing weeks which last for weeks and weeks. The globalisation of 'widening access' agenda that universities like London Met ( we do not have empire ) means that thousands of students arrive at these shores who are poorly qualified for entry in the universities in their own countries. Funds are frittered away through widening participation agenda. Hence time for these post-92 universities to become local again. The funds can thus be chanelled effectively in the two sectors. The devaluation of degree is avoided as degree courses stay in pre-92 universities and the country gets the young men and women with vocational skills.

Prof Michael Farthing is a distinguished gastroenterologist in Europe and lesser specialists in his area earn 3 or 4 times in their private practices in Harley Street and private hospitals in London. Brian Roper the outgoing VC of London Met, a failed university, was earning nearly 300,000. No one knows why he deserved this pay and what his expertise are unlike Prof Farthing. Just why should there be linguistics dept in many universities. Why not expand the dept in one university like Cambridge and fund it properly. The days of knowledge for its own sake has to be tempered with economic and jobs prospects realities. Linguistics falls into this category.

What do we do with those who graduate with a degree in linguistics . In the scheme of things we know what we can do with those who graduate with Biochemistry, Chemistry, Engineering , Medicine and Computing? Do linguistics populate the civil service, the unproductive sector?

Interesting comments all around - it is not surprising that cutbacks are now required in Pre-92 institutions; the post 92's have been achieving efficiencies for years in order to survive and many do rely heaviliy on local recruitment and a strong vocational offer. What seems illogical is that you have good departments in fairly prestigious universities being axed because of the economics of running departments or RAE outcomes when further down the pecking order departments in the same subject areas can survive and this is largely because their Universities have moved to be more efficient structures over the past few years.

The British HE sector is bloated with too many universities and too many non-academic staff; in contrast, we do not have enough academic staff to fulfil teaching duties. For example, a quick count reveals that Manchester Law School has 32 admin staff listed on their law school website, and 66 full time faculty members. This approximates* to 1 admin person per 2 full-time academic members of staff!! Last week it was reported that Manchester Law School were cutting teaching hours for undergraduates for 30 to 20 hours per term. Now even Sir Alan's apprentices can see that something is going wrong with the management there. * I'm a lawyer, don't expect good maths.

Dean,you haven't won student one time,but you can't before your student in this stage.Student do think we have to change the position,because you have to learn a lot from university. Dean, do need a people to dominate you and teach you of your role. I AM SO SORRY!

How the quality of university can be improved.If Dean can tell all people you are losing,I would like to teach you. Benefit: save time, save money,save resource, save our life.You must have to think about it,that because organisation just lose you but reward thousands! You are hero!

Malanie Newman, writes in THES: "Voluntary redundancies and recruitment freezes are the order of the day. Melanie Newman reports The wave of course closures and job cuts that has rocked the sector recently swept through more institutions this week. Cuts have been announced at the University of Warwick, the University of Strathclyde and the University of Sussex, and the University of Reading has confirmed that one of its schools will shut" Before accusing any one, the London Met staff has to read the above report which appears in THES. Good universities like the above are shedding staff and closing schools. What is big deal about this former poly which is making such good news these days? London Met's practices were tolerated too long and it appears that it is full of staff like the poster who replied. They lost the sympathy of the public and hence the closure is the only option after London Met was caught in its game of deception.

Could someone please translate what helena is saying?

@HE administrator: please accept my apologies for the poor grammar in my previous comment (and I suspect also in this one) - you are right to an extent, that the point i made was a simple one - but the fact remains that in the UK (more so than elsewhere) we seem to have got into this mentality where, the administrative functions of a university no longer exist to support the primary functions of research and teaching, they run parallel to it. It is apparent in several universities that I have worked in, that many academics feel they are conducting research, and undertaking teaching duties, to meet the demands of the administration. Unless of course you suggest that the academic functions of universities should be cut to fund more administration? I would also like to clarify that my issue is not at with the individual administrators, rather, it is at this government, and its obsession with arbitrary targets and excessive red-tape, that has led to the exponential increase in administration that we have seen in universities, and many other state-funded, and state-run organisations. This is at least partly why British universities are struggling to keep senior academics - firstly, they no longer have the capital to compete in terms of facilities, or salary (particularly compared to many North American universities, but increasingly Chinese universities), but also because academics are now expected to undetake far more administrative duties than before - a similar complaint you will note, is voiced by teachers, nurses, GPs... @Academic Admin - you are absolutely right. Post-1992s are putting a lot of older universities to shame in terms of efficiency. As other comments suggest, we need to be realistic, and recognise that HE must learn to compete with other demands on the national economy, and Post-92 universities seem to be recognising this, and adapting, far sooner than their older counterparts, leading (arguably) to academically strong departments closing preferentially to those which are less academically strong, but more financially efficient. Perhaps in time, those weaker, more financially efficient departments will flourish and improve - only time will tell.