Universities 'need 40,000 more staff to meet target'

Britain's universities must recruit more than 40,000 academics to meet the Government's pledge to get 50 per cent of young people into higher education by 2010, the leader of the country's university teachers believes.

Yet the reality, says Sally Hunt, general secretary of the Association of University Teachers is the union receives weekly calls from academics around the country who have been threatened with the sack because of financial cuts.

Ms Hunt said she will be seeking a three-year pay deal in negotiations with university employers next year – in line with government policy towards public-sector pay – to overcome the twin problems of low pay and increased workload. "I would actively want our employers to consider a three-year deal," she said.

An extra 42,000 staff would be needed, she said, just to keep staff-student ratios at their present level and replace the numbers expected to retire at the end of the decade.

"The staffing situation is getting worse, however, as you have the knock on effect of year after year of cuts in budget," she said. "At the moment we're looking at – on a weekly basis – university branches of the union coming to me and saying they're being told they're losing jobs. It's across the board in terms of subject areas and geographical location."

Ms Hunt said she was "looking forward to some clarity" over higher education policy when the Government publishes its long-awaited university blueprint next month.

But she was alarmed by ministerial talk of splitting universities into teaching and research institutions.

"That's the most simplistic rubbish I've ever heard in my life," she said. "I've never heard of a university in this country that doesn't have at least one good area of research. What are we saying – that all the former polytechnics and the post-1992 universities are going to be teaching specialist and all the pre-1992 universities concentrating on research? That's a two-tier university system if ever I saw one.

"Margaret Hodge [the minister for responsible for universities] talks of the elite universities getting 'out of their ivory towers' but this will just reinforce elitism."

Ms Hunt also said it was "simply wrong" to allow universities to introduce top-up fees. "I don't believe that simply because you have a degree you should have to pay more in tax for it than a member of society who may be earning the same amount but doesn't have a degree," she said.

"It seems to hark back to Margaret Thatcher's statement that there is no such thing as society if we expect the individual to pay for their own education. Surely that's what general taxation is for or are we saying that education is not for the good of society?

"I thought we'd left that kind of sentiment behind years ago and it's depressing to think of it making a return under a Labour government."

Charles Clarke, the Education Secretary, has indicated that the blueprint could allow universities to charge variable fees. Increased loans are likely to be offered to students to avoid them having to pay upfront fees.

Sources close to Downing Street suggested there could be a cap of about £4,000 a year on the fees universities charge.