I\u2019d be the first to admit it: hair matters. Having good hair makes you feel great. Great hair is one of Donald Trump\u2019s top hiring criteria. But are students of \u201chair and beauty sciences\u201d a strategic asset? Are they as important as, say, computer scientists or engineers or biologists? And, if they\u2019re not, might it be a good idea for our statistical authorities to remove \u201chair and beauty sciences\u201d from its broader category of \u201cbiosciences\u201d in higher education? Its inclusion, I would suggest, says something about the seriousness with which we take science policy.<\/p>\n
I bring it up because numbers crunched by UK-China Transparency (UKCT) show that Britain\u2019s elite universities now have more Chinese than British students enrolled in advanced science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) courses. Russell Group institutions are training about as many Chinese Stem postgrads as Brits. But our top science hubs \u2014 Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Manchester and University College London \u2014 are collectively enrolling about five Chinese Stem postgrads for every four Brits. In engineering, there are some 3,300 Chinese postgrads versus 1,900 Brits; in maths, 700 Chinese versus 500 Brits.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t tell you what the ratio is in hair and beauty sciences because the data isn\u2019t broken down that way, but given Xi Jinping\u2019s impressively luscious locks, I think we can assume he isn\u2019t sending thousands of bright young things over here for the sake of his follicles. Conversely, I feel it would be rash to assume that a large portion of British students statistically classed as scholars of biology are not, in fact, aspiring Nicky Clarkes. Call it a hunch.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Chinese students \u2018pressured to spy\u2019 on UK campuses<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n It ought to be shocking that these venerated seats of science are contributing more to the next generation of researchers in a far-off country with a hostile regime than to the brilliance and enlightenment of their own countrymen. But aside from the warped norms of modern science, in which many scholars consider themselves above petty concerns like loyalty and national security, there is an obvious reason for this. At undergrad level, Stem courses cost more to deliver than universities are allowed to charge British students. Foreign students, by contrast, can pay their way. So, while the pipeline of Brits into advanced study is strangled, there is a vast surplus of foreign students ready to take their place.<\/p>\n The problem is that hosting thousands of Chinese engineers is very much not the same as getting in bulk batches of Canadians or Germans. The Chinese state has an official policy of \u201cmilitary-civil fusion\u201d whereby all civil technology is put at the disposal of defence and security needs as well as technological espionage and economic coercion. Even if a vetting scheme could deal with this risk (which it can\u2019t, because it\u2019s a systemic problem arising from mutually incompatible and hostile political norms), Britain doesn\u2019t have one remotely capable of doing so.<\/p>\n When UKCT tried to get details of how the Foreign Office checks overseas students, it was told the government would not supply China-specific data to avoid hurting \u201cinternational relations\u201d. Overall, the figures show about 1-3 per cent of applications are refused, but there appear to be yawning gaps. For example, the Foreign Office doesn\u2019t ask Chinese students if they are members of the Communist Party. It doesn\u2019t even seem to require them to record their names in Chinese characters and collects them only in Latinised \u201cpinyin\u201d form. This makes vetting using any Chinese-language resources impossible. I know because during an investigation of a dodgy, pro-Beijing figure some years ago, I came across a person of interest with a pinyin name that turned out to have 24 possible Chinese spellings, and the tantalising trail of breadcrumbs ended there.<\/p>\n The bigger problem is not that we are training so many Chinese scientists and engineers without knowing who they are. It is that we are training so few British ones. In a country so exposed to foreign supply chain risk, with a shrivelled defence industrial base and chronic skills shortages in cutting-edge science and engineering fields, our neglect of advanced science education is totally reckless.<\/p>\n \u2022 Universities can use loophole to avoid severing links with China<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Given budget constraints, it ought to be blindingly obvious that we need to reallocate funding on a massive scale from cheap arts and humanities courses into high-value, productivity-enhancing Stem courses, at both undergrad and postgrad levels. The state\u2019s insistence on being \u201cneutral\u201d about what our students study effectively creates a financial bias against science for our universities and an economic bias against security and prosperity for the country.<\/p>\n None of this should be remotely controversial. But it is, not just because it challenges vested interests in our universities, who make a comfortable living selling useless degrees, but because the fragile egos of arts and humanities graduates cannot cope with the notion that we might be better off with fewer of them and more people in lab coats and overalls. I don\u2019t know why this should be the case. As a humanities graduate, I have no illusions about the relative utility of writing versus medicine or steelmaking. It doesn\u2019t threaten my sense of self-worth. But apparently I\u2019m unusual.<\/p>\n Just look at the reaction to a fairly sensible set of policies the Tories just announced. Among measures aiming to reallocate more money into vocational training, the Conservatives suggested cutting funding for the most worthless fifth of university courses currently on offer \u2014 about 100,000 degrees that produce graduates largely incapable of earning enough to pay back their loans. By way of example, the shadow education secretary, Laura Trott, cited data from the Institute for Fiscal Studies showing that three quarters of the value of loans<\/a> funding creative arts courses have to be written off. This is taxpayer money and precious years of young adulthood sent directly down the drain by selfish and narcissistic university failings. And yet the backlash from self-styled \u201ccreative\u201d professionals was immediate, with moaning about the \u201cunderfunded and undervalued\u201d arts.<\/p>\n