Actually, they have never changed in the last two decades and, regardless of the current Coalition Government. or any Government's policies, I have always made it absolutely clear that higher education is a vital part of any government's economic development toolset and should be considered as such.
That may be naive in the current economic climate but it is something I passionately believe in which is not surprising, given that I have spent 26 years in the higher education sector.
Yes, there are questions about the way universities are managed in Wales, the numbers going to university, the imbalance between undergraduate and graduate education, and their diminishing role in economic development (look at the failure to generate entrepreneurs from the sector for the Technium network as one example).
However, principles are sometimes more important than pragmatism and the whole point of devolution is that, if we want to, we can do things differently. For politicians, it is a matter of choice and they will have to defend that policy, in the same way that they may have to defend cuts in the health spending, an economic strategy or rises in taxation.
Fortunately, I have no political influence whatsoever so my views are unimportant!
Anyway, this is what I said after my appearance on Pawb a'i Farn last March when the subject of increased tuition fees in Wales was debated after the show:
"My view is quite clear on the subject. This should never have happened and rather than focusing specifically on how to cut support to students to make up the funding gap in Wales, the Jones review should have examined the wider benefits of free tuition fees to the economy of Wales.
When we keep hearing that we need to create a knowledge-based economy that is based on higher level skills, is this the way forward? We know there is a £61 million gap in university spending between England and Wales, a gap that the Assembly Government has chosen not to make good.
Instead, they will be taking money away from students to try and make up this difference. It is easy to try and defend the situation and I am surprised how many politicians, including Dafydd Wigley last night, were ready to say that this was necessary. Surely this is a matter of priorities for the Government. If it believes that education is critical to the future of this nation and that we want to create a small clever country, is this the way forward?
In Scandinavia, which has some of the most competitive small nations in the World, there are no tuition fees paid by students because policymakers in Sweden and Finland have realised that without a highly educated workforce, you cannot create a strong knowledge-based economy.
The Assembly Government currently spends well over a quarter of a billion pounds annually on business support in Wales. Yet, despite having over 1200 civil servants in the Department of Economy administering this money, we remain firmly rooted to the bottom of the UK prosperity league table.
A more radical Assembly Government would have examined whether this money would have been better spent on addressing the higher education finance gap between England and Wales. Instead, it set up a review that, because of its myopic terms of reference, could only come up with one conclusion.
Unfortunately, it is a conclusion that will do little to help the long term economic prospects of this nation and by aping the actions of English educationalists, has diminished devolution within this country."
