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The Confederation of British Industry has made a desperate plea to the government in London to seriously think about hiking university fees because the cost of education is becoming a growing burden for the UK taxpayer.
Furthermore, the rising unemployment rate is forcing many school-leavers to take shelter in a university and perhaps earn some additional education or vocational training in order to ensure better employment opportunities later on.
The economic crisis gripping Britain has also cut short the sabbaticals and time-offs of students who wanted to discover new cultures and adventured to new worlds.
However, the CBI does not want a fee hike simply to fill the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s coffers, but wants university education to become more competitive and also to branch out into new courses and new directions Britain’s economy will need of the next generations, such as the sciences.
Cyprus, too, has a growing number of university seekers, but in our case the private universities are charging an arm and a leg, which at 8,000 euros a year, is twice as much as what you would pay at an above-average university in the U.K.
Paying state grants to educate our high school graduates would be a better long-term investment for this administration than hiring more civil servants for menial jobs, as young Cypriots would embark on joining the knowledge society that is still in its prime on this island.
The government could also give incentives to those higher education establishments (including the state universities) that introduce new and challenging courses that will help create the future generation of business and science leaders.
In recent months, we have called for the government to help our young graduates to find jobs, either by subsidising their employ or by giving incentives to businesses to hire these university leavers, that would help reduce the jobless rate. These new recruits would eventually start contributing to the bankrupt Social Insurance Fund that pays for our pensions today and may not have enough to pay for these youngsters when they retire.
So, instead of allowing for fees to rise further, the government could help reduce these fees through subsidies and indirect aid to the universities, and at the same time win over some future voters. After all, that is what counts at the end of the day, both here and everywhere else…
