Just over a week ago, the Government published its Higher Education Framework, the latest report from the newly created Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The framework, spearheaded by Lord Mandelson, was entitled ‘Higher Ambitions’, ironically so since his ambitions for the UK’s education system are pretty low.

The report’s key buzzword, splashed across every section, seems to be ‘employability’. Universities are seen as fundamental to our ‘knowledge economy’; they are the Government’s big opportunity to make money from a system that they support both financially and politically. However, they seem to miss a key part of what has always, and always will, create the world-class education system that we have – and that is education for education’s sake.

The first obvious move in this direction was the removal of universities from the ‘Education’ department, and their placement within the new BIS, with business and skills being the key words. And this is where the Government seems to see universities, firmly placed as providers for businesses. Their work in this area can’t be faulted, they are trying to increase the number of work placements for students, while also building up better links between universities and small businesses, in an economic landscape which is far from rosy. But their intentions seem to be dubious. Although they do, of course, deserve a return for their money in the form of economic growth, this is not the only way a good university system can benefit the nation. An obsession with skills over education is not a path that will lead to an overall better-educated population, and indeed workforce.

The skills vs. education debate has sprung up in recent years, and seems only ever to elicit a black or white response – which fundamentally misses the point. The Government’s stated aim is to equip graduates with the skills they need for life outside of education, be it teamwork, public speaking or social behaviour. Once again, there isn’t a single mention of the fact that life ‘outside’ education is not the only life – in fact, the only reason we have education is that thousands of people work within the sector, not in think-tanks or quangos, but on the cutting edge of research, within both science and the arts. Without these people, there would be no innovation and no advances in business. But the academic world is scorned, both by the public and by the Government. The Home Secretary’s recent firing of David Nutt, the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, demonstrated this point: if research and knowledge really are the top of the Government’s agenda, they could do worse than listening to those who are at the forefront of education.

It is of course arguable that the idea of education for its own sake is a very middle-class, ivory-tower view of the world. The problem is that, at present, the opportunity for anyone on any kind of budget to do further research is limited, even with the bursaries and schemes available. And it is, of course, far harder to do an arts PhD – and perhaps this is because science will always be better funded, as it is considered more valuable to the economy. The great minds of the arts, therefore, are considered expendable. One of the Government’s proposals to widen participation for research is to provide greater funding to those institutions that encourage social mobility, but this misses the point. Social mobility begins at the core, at the root of education, and universities have been removed from that Government department. The main reason social mobility is not a reality is not that universities are necessarily elitist; it is because the education system does not prepare the country’s best minds, at a young age, to realise their potential. Punishing excellent research centres for something that is, to a very large extent, out of their control, is an utter outrage.

A major problem with the current system is the number of degrees which themselves do not lead to transferable, employable skills. The move to create a fifty per cent university attendance rate sounds good in principle, but in practice it fails when not all courses lead to worthwhile skills or education. University attendance should equip people with a rigorous, academic education, and it is this that the Government should be trying to give to the fifty percent. The skills people need for ‘employability’ should not need to be taught – they should naturally be part of any degree worth its salt. If the Government really wanted to increase the education of people in the UK, and the UK’s academic and business standing in the world, it would give the education that people need, to equip them for work in research, in academia and in the business world.