What universities are for and what they are not for – Key

Sir,
I welcomed *Professor Alison Richard’s robust attack on ¹ government "meddling" ² in the selection procedures ³ of our top ⁴ universities. Of course these institutions try to reach out to ⁵ the best students, whatever their background ⁶, and one outcome ⁷ of that is that they can help to promote social mobility ⁸. But this is not their raison d’être.

Their core mission ⁹ is to provide an outstanding ¹⁰ education within a research setting ¹¹. It is misguided ¹² to skew ¹³ education at the highest level ¹⁴ to the needs of industry, the implementation ¹⁵ of ‘skills’ or to some hidden agenda ¹⁶ of social engineering ¹⁷. The risk is that we are expecting universities to help solve society’s problems ¹⁸. That is up to ¹⁹ governments – isn’t it? ²⁰
Ruth Beesley

*the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University

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