Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:27 pm on 24 May 2016.
I’d like to thank the education Secretary for that and welcome her to her role. The loss of support for part-time postgraduate study means that some Welsh universities will face significant percentage cuts in their total HEFCW funding. So, for example: Cardiff Metropolitan University will lose 25 per cent of its grant; Glyndŵr some 20 per cent; and a university such as Cardiff is going to lose over £2 million. Whilst I accept the fact that HEFCW have the right to allocate the money as they see fit, education Secretary, I would like to understand what measures you might consider putting in place, given these cuts that have been announced. Part-time postgraduate educational study is vital for the development of our people, vital for career development, vital for postgraduate research work and is, in essence, a part of our university life and something that universities themselves treasure dearly. My concern is, with these cuts at the extent that they are—i.e., there’s no funding at all, again, anywhere for postgraduate part-time study—then we’re going to be basically disenfranchising an incredibly important cohort of our mature student base and I think that Welsh Government needs to have some responsibility in directing HEFCW or seeing what can be done to mitigate these problems, because it will become a real issue in the development of our culture going forward.