With talk of cuts drowning out all other kinds of discourse, I thought it would be interesting to canvass opinions in the universities as to the outlook for employment over the next year or two.  Now, I certainly wouldn’t pretend that what I did was to conduct a scientific survey amongst Advancement professionals at the more than 20 institutions I spoke to, but nonetheless the results were interesting.

Firstly, the bad news. At least a couple of institutions are facing compulsory redundancies, and half were anticipating voluntary redundancies/natural wastage etc, the majority of which were expected to primarily impact administrative staff.  Most universities had at least a freeze on recruitment, and many had put in place very strict rules governing the filling of posts which become vacant.

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Any motorist driving to work at school times will be familiar with the congestion caused by the school run - but what are parents to do?  Schools are often not within walking distance of home and if you have two or three children at different schools – which does happen - how do you cope? Choice (whatever it may be) is universally held to be a good thing, but in practice it often means that children do not go to the nearest school.  How can government want parents to have a choice of school on social grounds, and also encourage women to work on economic grounds, and promote children walking to school on health grounds - but at the same time make all of this all but impossible because it means that children attend schools miles from home?  There is a further effect, namely that driving is the only practical way of getting children to school on time, especially outside the major conurbations.

So much for environmental policy.

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Well, I guess the electoral excitement is now over, and reality will have to take over.  Personally, I welcome in principle the notion of parties working together (it has produced, in Germany, one of the world’s most successful countries, after all), and if it leads to politicians insulting each other rather less (in case they need a coalition after some future election) and concentrating on policies rather more, well I don’t know too many people who will regret that!

As far as Education goes, I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen of both Michael Gove and David Willetts when I’ve seen them in relatively intimate surroundings – I’m not convinced that television is a great friend to either.  Policy is another matter of course, and it’s pretty clear that, whilst there are interesting proposals for increased funding in certain areas, education as a whole, and especially tertiary education, will not escape the inevitable cuts in public funding which lie ahead.

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No doubt after the Election we will hear about the impact that the digital communications revolution has had on the fortunes of the various parties – and no doubt the reports will be as contradictory as their policies.  However, when normal service resumes, and we go back to attracting students and recruiting staff (assuming that there is any money of course), there will certainly be some lessons for education marketers.

Actually, one of the key lessons is that things are changing, and that experimentation beyond the tried and trusted is important, if only to learn what doesn’t work – a toe in the water is less costly than a full scale disaster.  And in our world, there are always new things to try….

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