Welsh Conservatives will today seek cross-party support in fighting the Welsh Education Minister’s plans to force mergers on the Higher Education sector.
In a debate backed by the Welsh Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Liberal Democrats, AMs will call for voluntary collaboration between Wales’ Higher Education Institutions.
AMs of all parties have objected to proposals to force mergers between various universities, including a number of prominent Labour politicians in North East Wales.
Angela Burns AM, Shadow Education Minister, said, “We recognise that the way we deliver Higher Education in Wales needs to change to deliver the improvements we all want to see in research, development and teaching.
“Welsh universities should be working together more cohesively to deliver services more efficiently and to ensure a critical mass in key entrepreneurial sectors.
“Greater collaboration could open up opportunities for universities to equip young people with the skills they need in an increasingly competitive market.
“We believe that any reconfiguration plans should be for universities and their students to determine rather than being based on a central diktat from Ministers.
“Instead of being seen to oppress institutions into submission, the Minister should be engaging positively with our universities and encouraging co-operation where it is mutually beneficial.
“The Education Minister appears to be pursuing his own agenda, having misrepresented Hefcw’s recommendations as independent, when his own department ordered the case for mergers to be sexed up.
“Enforced mergers could negatively impact on the reputation and standard of our universities at a time when university funding is so uncertain due to Labour’s increasingly unaffordable £3.6billion student subsidy.”
