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Growing up I don’t think my parents ever asked us ‘do you want to go to university?’ The expectation was that we would all go and it was just a question of where. I do think my mum, herself a passionate reader, had a rather romanticised view of a university education but she was adamant that all learning however limited or extensive was a moral endeavour.

I took this view for granted and consider myself very fortunate. But having worked in universities for almost 30 years, I fear we have lost our way a little when it comes to higher education. The news this week that several UK universities have announced plans to cut hundreds of jobs doesn’t surprise me.
Fewer international students and funding cuts are placing financial strains on many institutions and as is so often the case, its predominantly the humanities subjects which are the first to be reduced or axed completely. Instead of nurturing the creative complementarity of science and art, it’s all too easy to see the humanities as peripheral rather than central to what it means to be human.

This is largely because higher education has become transactional, increasingly viewed as a place of training rather than learning. Of course it can be both and economic growth and industry are important, but when the market drives everything, when the only thing that matters is money then we shouldn’t be surprised that one day we may ask the question ‘do we really need our students to be able to think critically?’

Education isn’t ideologically neutral, it produces particular forms of knowledge, of power, ways of seeing the world. But at its best it should be disruptive; it should inspire young people to imagine new worlds and new justices. It should create greater awareness and empathy of human connectivity where the young can speak to a future rather than feeling trapped in the present. If our democracies really are in trouble with fractured and alienated communities, then just having more money isn’t the answer.

When I think back to how my mother spoke of education, she saw no tension between our Muslim faith and learning. She reminded us that the Qur’an uses the word ‘reflect’ so many times precisely because whether or not obedience is a virtue, reflection on the world is an act of faith. The humanities give us the space to question, to explore our inner and collective life - learning to think well isn’t a luxury, its what universities were created for.

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