Podcast: Free speech, Scottish budget, Mickey Mouse

This week on the podcast new polling suggests over a 3rd of scholars assume Reform UK needs to be banned from talking on campus – a better proportion than earlier surveys discovered for the BNP or English Defence League. So what does this inform us about free speech in increased schooling?

Plus Scotland’s price range settlement and legislative modifications, and unpacking what “Mickey Mouse programs” actually means.

With Andy Lengthy, Vice Chancellor at Northumbria College, Jess Lister, Director of Training at Public First, and Debbie McVitty, Editor at Wonkhe and introduced by Mark Leach, Editor in Chief at Wonkhe.

On the positioning

41 per cent of Reform-voting undergraduates don’t think Reform should be allowed to speak on campus

So you’ve been accused of harbouring “Mickey Mouse” courses at your institution… now what?

Identifying “mickey mouse” courses

Scottish Budget 2026 to 2027

You may subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, Spotify, Acast, Amazon Music, Deezer, RadioPublic, Podchaser, Castbox, Player FM, Stitcher, TuneIn, Luminary or through your favorite app with the RSS feed.

Transcript (auto generated)

It’s The Wonkhe Present. A 3rd of scholars need Reform off campus. We’re speaking about what’s actually happening behind the info. It’s been a giant week of charges and funding in Scotland and the Mickey Mouse row returns. However who’s actually taking the mic? It’s all developing.

And it’s clearly affordable for individuals to query the worth of college programs based mostly on, for instance, tutorial rigour, pupil outcomes, and broader societal worth. However it’s not affordable for them to arbitrarily determine on this based mostly on no proof. I’m afraid I see this text as actually very lazy journalism.

Welcome again to The Wonkhe Present, your weekly information to this week’s increased schooling information, coverage and evaluation. I’m your host Mark Leach, and right here to chew the fats over this week’s information, as ordinary, are three good company. In Newcastle, it’s Andy Lengthy, Vice-Chancellor of Northumbria College. Andy, your spotlight of the week, please.

Thanks, Mark. Yesterday, we had a tour of our soon-to-be-opened North East Area Abilities and Know-how Centre. It’s going to be the house to some actually thrilling analysis and instructing on satellite tv for pc and house science and expertise, and we had been accompanied by the North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, who’s an ideal supporter of this initiative.

Pretty. And with us is Jess, Director of Training at Public First. Jess, your spotlight of the week, please.

Hey, sure. Mine is a little bit of a brag, I’m afraid. We launched our report this week on nationwide numeracy. And often if you launch a report, you’re searching for pick-up in The Occasions or The Telegraph, or one of many broadsheets. However I used to be delighted that for the primary time, our report was mentioned on This Morning, on the couch. So there you go. A report launch first for me.

Superb. And in North London is Demetri Onakés-Elizadebi. Your spotlight of the week, please.

Effectively, I had a superb assembly of the Audit and Danger Committee of the organisation that I’m a trustee of, which is the Nationwide Institute of Instructing. It sounds terribly uninteresting, however really we had a really full of life dialogue about inner audit, and that was very a lot the spotlight of my week. That’s fairly unhappy, however there it’s.

The Greater Training Coverage Institute has carried out a 3rd wave of polling of pupil views on free speech. The primary of those waves was in 2016, across the time of Brexit. The second was in 2022, across the time of Covid. The newest was carried out in November and revealed this morning, and it’s making an attempt to discover whether or not, as some commentators have urged, the period of “woke” is over, in mild of the election of Donald Trump and a supposed sea change in public views.

What we see right here is a few actually fairly combined outcomes. There’s development within the variety of college students who assume universities are much less tolerant of the expression of a free vary of views. That’s as much as 47 per cent, which is somewhat bit regarding. Fifty-two per cent assume pupil societies are usually oversensitive. That tends in the direction of the concept college students are coming away from what could be characterised as anti-free speech positions. However assist for protected house insurance policies and set off warnings has grown over the identical interval, which factors the opposite manner.

The attention-catching outcome that’s all around the press this morning is that one third, about 35 per cent, assume Reform UK needs to be banned from campus. Earlier waves polled on organisations just like the EDL, BNP and UKIP, and round 1 / 4 to a 3rd of scholars in earlier waves expressed assist for these organisations being banned from campus. Reform is clearly one thing somewhat bit completely different.

DK has unpacked this on the positioning right now, and one of many issues he notes that’s value contextualising is that the quantity contains Reform-voting college students, so there’s something happening there. He additionally notes that solely 18 per cent of scholars mentioned that no person needs to be banned from campus. There’s clearly one thing happening right here about college students’ attitudes to political events. There are a great deal of different questions in there about occasions, memorials and curriculum. One factor to remove is that a whole lot of college students are within the “it relies upon” camp. There’s extra nuance right here than it would appear to be at first blush.

Sure, tons happening right here. Simply the place to start, as a result of a whole lot of this appears to be like fairly contradictory on the face of it. For instance, 41 per cent of Reform-voting college students don’t assume Reform ought to converse on campus. Is that this about college students normally and attitudes to politics, or is there a partisan factor happening right here?

One of many first stuff you be taught if you begin doing public opinion analysis is that individuals can comfortably maintain competing views of their heads and never see the logical inconsistencies. This can be a giant pattern of round a thousand college students, executed by a good polling firm, and HEPI is a good outlet. It’s not potential to take a look at this and say the pattern is incorrect or the ballot is incorrect. What’s fascinating is considering what sits behind a few of the questions.

Take the headline {that a} third of scholars would ban Reform UK from campus. I’m considering whether or not they need them banned, or whether or not they simply don’t wish to take heed to them. That has all the time been one of many tensions in free speech coverage. You may have a proper to lawful free speech on campus, however you should not have a proper for anybody to show up and take heed to you, or to love you in your views. Typically all of this will get muddled up.

It’s a extremely fascinating discovering. It’s going to wind up all of the individuals who prefer to be wound up by these items. It must also trigger everybody else to pause for reflection. This shouldn’t be dismissed. There’s a dialog to have about what college leaders can do to interrupt down polar opposites of views. “I don’t thoughts free speech, I simply don’t wish to hear from these individuals. I don’t wish to have interaction.” That may be a substantive dialogue.

When it comes to the polling, it might be fascinating to comply with this up. Polling reveals what individuals assume. It doesn’t clarify why. It will be helpful to see extra dialogue about why college students assume events needs to be banned from talking, and what they imply by “banned” on this context.

It makes me wonder if college students have a extra nuanced view than this makes out. There’s plenty of assist for protected areas and content material warnings. Does that counsel that this language of banning, and the binary debate that always dominates the free speech dialog, isn’t the place they’re of their heads?

I feel Jess captured it effectively. It could be about whether or not college students wish to ban issues or whether or not they simply don’t wish to hear them. Social media, and the way individuals work together by means of it, colors expectations. Prior to now you may need anticipated to listen to a spread of views by means of completely different media. Now your social media channel might be largely centered on stuff you agree with, and you could be extra reluctant to have interaction with these you don’t.

Ultimately, a proportion of the inhabitants will all the time wish to ban issues they don’t like. College students will not be terribly completely different to the remainder of the inhabitants. What we additionally know is that 18 to 24 12 months olds are far much less prone to assist Reform than, for instance, the Inexperienced Celebration. A current YouGov ballot confirmed that 10 per cent of that age group supported Reform and 30 per cent supported the Greens. It’s fascinating on this research that 7 per cent of individuals wish to ban the Greens from talking on campus. Put collectively, individuals typically wish to ban, or keep away from listening to from, individuals they disagree with. If fewer younger individuals assist Reform, extra of them wish to see Reform banned, or simply don’t wish to hear from them.

It’s additionally fascinating that in earlier waves of this survey, events requested about had been extra excessive than Reform. In 2016 and 2022, the survey requested in regards to the BNP and the English Defence League, and related older, defunct however nonetheless culturally current far proper organisations. This 12 months, should you put all of the events requested about on a left-to-right scale, Reform is probably the most excessive. It will be fascinating to see whether or not the polling is exhibiting that individuals don’t need probably the most excessive events to come back to campus, or whether or not it’s Reform particularly.

What actually issues is how universities reply to this. I see no proof that they’re banning audio system from completely different political events. The one proof I’ve is after we had hustings for the mayoral elections. Our college students’ union organised these, all candidates had been invited, and the Reform candidate determined to not come. They’d have been welcome to come back and put their case ahead and reply questions from our college students, however they didn’t wish to.

Scholar leaders are in a extremely fascinating place right here. I’m reminded of a dialog I had on the Pageant of Training in November, across the time this polling was being carried out, with a pupil chief wrestling along with her obligations round a Reform society on campus. Inevitably it was framed in free speech phrases. The scholars who needed to arrange the society and invite audio system felt strongly about it, as did the scholars who felt it was inappropriate. As a pupil chief, she needed to navigate that house. That nuance of the way you take heed to each camps, and what objective political societies serve on campus by way of civic engagement and political debate, is a part of the image.

Mark asks about Reform’s deputy chief Richard Tice, who has jumped on the polling and known as the findings appalling. He claims British universities have deserted being centres of real studying, rigorous debate and mental problem, as a substitute turning into echo chambers of far left indoctrination run by activist teachers. That is his long-held place already. It performs neatly into how he desires to speak about universities, and it frames the tradition battle fairly starkly. There’s a hazard the nuance will get misplaced within the mainstream.

College students having left-wing views ought to shock no person. That has been true for a very long time. Richard Tice believing universities are far left indoctrination camps can also be a long-held view. None of that is new. He didn’t use the “left-wing madrasas” line this time. What’s fascinating is the second paragraph of his assertion, which arguably provides the sector a solution. He says universities bear duty for permitting this tradition to fester. Universities do now bear duty for serving to and inspiring as wholesome a debate as potential on this subject. If I used to be a college vice-chancellor, I might be occupied with find out how to get higher debates on campus. We’re a good distance out from an election, however this situation goes to bubble and bubble except universities are seen to do one thing.

This debate solely ever pursuits the political elite. It isn’t often a mass public opinion situation, but it surely acts like a barnacle on the sector’s popularity. The extra work you see on find out how to have debate on campus, together with with individuals you disagree with, the much less weight these “echo chamber” assaults have. This additionally attracts closely from the US playbook. Below Trump, Republicans had universities of their sights and began stripping out grant funding, typically utilizing free speech as a rationale. You may see Reform dipping a toe within the water about one thing like that right here within the UK, with out actually understanding the funding system they might be making an attempt to reshape. They’re pulling from what has occurred within the US and making an attempt to make it a UK-wide debate.

There’s additionally one thing about “woke” as a class. The origins of the time period are about being attuned to social inequality and understanding how completely different teams might be marginalised, notably round racial and ethnic marginalisation. However it has expanded and brought on a pejorative lifetime of its personal, used from a hostile ideological place in the direction of universities. It will be odd if college students themselves, who aren’t immersed in anti-woke discourse, had been to deal with a basket of positions round free speech as a coherent “woke” label. That coherence is usually assumed by the individuals asking the questions or analysing the outcomes, somewhat than by college students themselves.

In Wonkhe polling, there may be additionally a hyperlink between a way of freedom to talk on a private stage and being a part of a marginalised group. We are able to too readily assume freedom of speech means freedom to assault left-wing positions. It may be as a lot about feeling protected, feeling a part of a neighborhood, and understanding the needs of talking up as it’s about entitlement to be uncovered to controversial views. Now that the sector has been by means of the free speech debate, the laws, the regulator, and the insurance policies, there’s a case for going again to college students and asking what issues to them in participating in a dialog, what the aim is pedagogically, and what it does for growth as a graduate and citizen in a fancy political atmosphere.

Let’s see who’s necessary for us this week.

Hello, I’m Shine Jackson, an employment associate at Mills & Reeve specialising within the sector. After months of parliamentary forwards and backwards, the Employment Rights Act 2025 lastly made it into the statute books simply earlier than Christmas, with wide-ranging implications for the sector. From new guidelines on unfair dismissal and zero-hours contracts, to harder necessities on sexual harassment and main modifications to industrial motion, these reforms can have an actual affect on how universities handle their individuals and threat. In my weblog I’ve set out 5 issues sector leaders must know to organize for these reforms, with a helpful desk of implementation dates.

Now, Jess, it’s been a busy month in Scotland. Inform us what’s happening.

It has. In Scotland we’ve seen the launch of a Future Framework for universities, a joint authorities and sector initiative to scope out the long-term wants of Scotland’s increased schooling system all the way in which to 2045. It’s value noting this isn’t a full assessment. It’s extra the beginning of an analysis of the sector’s long-term monetary sustainability, what it would want, and what Scotland’s economic system would possibly want. It isn’t a promise that something within the present system goes to alter. It’s also a reminder that the Scottish system is way more reliant than the English system on direct authorities funding as a result of college students at present don’t pay charges. So what the federal government decides its long-term settlement goes to be is vital.

We’ve seen indications the Scottish authorities is prepared to supply some additional assist. There’s been an above-inflation enhance in instructing and analysis budgets introduced this week, maybe within the hope of avoiding one other Dundee-style incident. The ultimate factor that’s fascinating is that, just like England and Wales, the Scottish authorities is now making an attempt to scope out not simply what a better schooling funding technique appears to be like like, however a tertiary one too.

Debbie responds that Scotland is already extra “tertiary” than England within the sense of a post-16, post-18 provide throughout the system. There could also be politics happening. Earlier than Christmas the minister introduced a plan to work with the college sector on the funding framework. Scotland’s universities face a real monetary disaster, which can also be an issue for the nation. The framework plan could also be designed to get below the pores and skin of the problems and carry the dialog throughout the Scottish Parliament elections within the spring. The tertiary strategy can also be linked to the Tertiary Training Invoice, and should mirror stress from Scotland’s schools {that a} increased schooling funding settlement implicates them too.

Committing to a technique is a step above annual budgets, and it alerts a want to hyperlink system sustainability to nationwide objectives. However there may be all the time a threat that methods preserve the dialog going with out actual motion. Funding increased schooling long run is troublesome. The strategy could also be helpful, however supply stays unsure.

Andy notes that Scottish universities obtain as much as £2,000 a 12 months much less per residence pupil than English universities do, and are much more reliant on worldwide pupil revenue. There’s additionally a comparatively small group of Scottish universities that may do very effectively in worldwide recruitment, which means there may be much less to go round for others. England faces its personal pressures, together with undergraduate charges being flat for 11 of the final 13 years and up to date reductions in worldwide pupil numbers, however the problem is bigger in Scotland.

Jess suggests {that a} joint authorities and sector assessment, with out guarantees, could possibly be a mannequin for England nearer to 2030. The query is whether or not it turns into a great dialog with out political and funding heft behind it. Andy cites a London Economics statistic from just a few years in the past that in England college students and graduates cowl round 84 per cent of the overall value of upper schooling, with authorities funding round 16 per cent, and contrasts this with Scotland, Wales and Northern Eire. The rhetoric from politics just lately has typically urged college students ought to pay extra, not much less, which doesn’t counsel a extra beneficiant settlement is imminent.

There’s additionally an acknowledgement that, regardless of everybody insisting the Scottish assessment isn’t just about charges, it inevitably is. The politics of “free schooling” stay a touchstone, notably for the SNP, however there’s a sense that with out a intelligent political route to alter, the funding disaster will proceed. There are different fashions, corresponding to salary-based graduate repayments, however implementing them is troublesome. Scotland might select to strive one thing completely different.

That’s about it for this week. Keep in mind you may go in deep on something we mentioned right now. You’ll discover hyperlinks within the present notes on wonkhe.com. Don’t overlook to subscribe. Simply seek for The Wonkhe Present wherever you get your podcasts. If you wish to get forward of all the things happening in UK increased schooling, hit subscriptions on the positioning to seek out out extra. Due to Jess, Andy and Debbie, and to Michael Salmon for making all of it occur behind the scenes. We’ll be again subsequent week. Jim will probably be right here. Till then, keep Wonkhe.