JIM SPENCE: Dundee University rescue plan must not be written by those who presided over disaster

The University of Dundee has been run like Del Boy’s Trotters Independent Traders in the comedy series Only Fools and Horses.

But those behind the colossal cock-up at this great academic institution have made the Peckham barrow boy look like a financial wizard.

And at least Del and brother Rodney brought a smile to our faces with their failed, get-rich-quick pie-in-the-sky schemes.

In the Dundee Uni crisis, there are those responsible for the mess who have already escaped.

Then there are those who have overseen the catastrophe but are still there, having pocketed fat salaries and sizeable pension contributions in their disastrous time in charge.

With The Courier reporting that university insiders fear as many as 500 jobs could be cut to address the £30 million budget shortfall, there’s no alternative but for the Scottish Government to step in to save the day.

The prospect of 500-plus jobs being lost at the institution is far too great a financial blow to contemplate in a city which has suffered too many gut punches in the past.

A university staffed by hard-working academic and support staff can’t be allowed to join the ignominious catalogue of industrial carnage which has damaged our economy in the past.

‘Some have already high-tailed it’

Those of a certain age still wistfully recall household names like Timex, Veeder Root, Levi’s, Bonar Long, Kestrel Marine and a host of other long-gone employers whose departure left an economic scar across the face of the city.

And while we still retain a healthy chunk of the NCR, there’s another name which now employs a far smaller number of folk than it did in Dundee’s industrial glory days.

To ensure the university doesn’t suffer those same swingeing cuts which took huge spending power out of the city’s economic base, the Scottish Government must find the funds.

We must save as many staff as possible from the dole queues.

But no one who has had any part of managing this diabolical disaster should be left in a position of power.

Some of them have already high-tailed it from the city leaving others to pick up the shattered pieces at the damaged institution, but others were and are responsible for the almighty mess those escapees have left in their wake.

No one who has had any hand in this financial failure should play a part in writing a rescue plan or strategy.

The immediate task at hand is to save as many jobs as possible at the university, but looking to the future there’s also a much wider issue to be tackled which faces not only Dundee but other higher education institutions.

The question must be asked, are we educating students in the right subject areas or are we producing folk-waving degrees which in a fast-moving world are no longer the passport to success they once were?

‘Academic snobbery’

We have a desperate need for workers with skills in the trades which are needed to build things and provide services that folk need.

We need joiners, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, hairdressers, and a host of other skills which have for far too long been seen as less attractive and less prestigious than some university degrees.

As someone who in my late 20s went to Dundee University to do a law degree, I’m naturally in favour of a highly-educated population.

But there’s little point in pursuing a four-year course of study that leads to a job which could have been done without a degree.

Because so many folk in positions of power have emerged from the university system they see it as the pinnacle of educational achievement and ambition.

I’m in favour of students having access to higher education but I also think we’ve concentrated too heavily on it to the detriment of further education.

There’s a huge amount of academic snobbery involved in assuming those in possession of a degree are more worthy or superior to those who’ve completed apprenticeships in the various trades building our homes, styling our hair or farming our fields.

Dundee University needs, and must get government assistance, because the economic impact on the city from huge job cuts is too damaging to contemplate.

But we also have to radically rethink our educational policy to ensure further education is no longer treated like a Cinderella service.