Fees should be capped at current levels for students and the extra funding required in the fees debate, should come from business (banks, manufacturing, services etc), Unions and also from NI revenues. HE institutions should seek partnerships with business from all parts of the world in other to obtain sponsorships, bursaries and also funding. They could develop greater links with industries and syndicates.
The system advocated here has its roots in the German tripartite system of economic policy development and consultation, and can be adapted quite easily for education policy and educational capacity building, as best practice.
Society should have a direct relationship with education and is only fair that all pay into the cost, as a society, we all receive benefit derived from that education.
All pay in and all benefit in return.
When the graduate begins to pay back, he/she would effectively be paying his share of the cost and via the interest charged, he also pays back the cost from the NI contributions of taxpayers.
Employers and Unions receive their share of contributions back in the form of the benefit of a better-educated and skilled employee/ Union member.
Furthermore, if projections of higher salaries are correct, graduates should be paying back more in taxes anyway.
This approach involving all stakeholders in education is the only long-term solution to this problem.
21st Liberalism for an age of Labour induced austerity.
