Clarke in battle over top-up fees
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Your support makes all the difference.Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, has had to delay setting out his plans for the future of Britain's universities as he battles to persuade his fellow ministers to endorse a proposal that would see students at the top universities paying higher tuition fees.
Andrew Adonis, Tony Blair's chief policy adviser – known to some Westminster insiders as "the real Education Secretary" – cancelled his weekend plans yesterday in order to stay at his desk rewriting a strategy document circulated to ministers by Mr Clarke.
The strategy paper includes the contentious proposal to allow some universities to top fees up to a maximum of £3,000 a year, to help cover an acknowledged shortage of funds for research work.
The paper, approved by Mr Clarke, was written over the new year by Robert Hill, a former Downing Street adviser who moved to the Department for Education when Mr Clarke was appointed last autumn.
Mr Clarke had hoped to soften opposition to the plan by specifying that the extra fees would not be repaid by students until after they had graduated and begun earning. He has rejected a counterproposal, which has wide support in the Labour Party, that all graduates should pay a tax, irrespective of which university they attended.
Any proposal to allow some universities to charge higher fees than others will run into intense opposition from Labour MPs and from the Liberal Democrats, who fear that talented students from low-income families will be put off applying for places at the best universities.
Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, and David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, have also raised objections to the proposal behind the scenes.
The plan was expected to go to the Cabinet's Domestic Affairs Committee, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, this week, and to be published the day after, but will not now appear until at least 20 January. The Department for Education has promised to publish no later than 31 January.
An opinion poll published today shows the public would overwhelmingly back the closure of universities and a cut in the number of students rather than see higher fees.
Conducted for the students' union at Imperial College, London, the MORI poll shows 70 per cent of respondents favouring this option. Only 11 per cent favoured students and/or their parents paying more for university places.
Student leaders said the results showed the Government could drop its target of getting 50 per cent of youngsters into higher education by the end of the decade without suffering any political fallout.
Sen Ganesh, the president of the Imperial College Union, said: "This shows that the public do not support the Government's blind drive for 50 per cent participation. Voters clearly want the country to retain academically excellent universities, fully funded by the Government."
Mr Clarke has said that, if forced to choose between widening participation and the 50 per cent target, he would opt for the former, although the target still remains.
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