Time for change: reframing the science versus arts education debate

Professor Sarah Prescott | University of Edinburgh

Recently an ongoing debate came again into sharp focus: science versus arts. In a speech to Vice-Chancellors, Science Minister Chris McDonald MP argued that degrees in science, engineering and mathematics “offer the greatest personal, social and economic value to our nation”.

Many rightly challenged the claim, with universities minister Baroness Smith, affirming that: “when we come to some of the really significant issues that we face as a country… all of those things depend on both the research and the learning in humanities, in social science, in arts that come through our universities.”

As a Professor of literature and head of the University of Edinburgh’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences – one of the largest and most diverse academic faculties in the UK, comprising 28,000 students and 44 different subject areas – I share the strength of feeling behind Baroness Smith’s response.

However, as the whole university sector is facing a volatile and challenging external context, the ‘science versus arts’ debate is perhaps an unhelpful distraction.

In the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, we train students to be teachers, nurses, counsellors, social workers, psychologists, lawyers, architects, product designers, policy makers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders and prepare our graduates for a range of valuable professions and impactful careers.

We teach our students the importance of deep and broad subject knowledge, critical thinking, linguistic proficiency, and historical, political and cultural understanding. We empower our students with the resilience, skills and real-world experience needed to succeed in a rapidly changing and complex world. The education we provide is world-class and wide-ranging.

We live in a time of evolving student demand, changing demographics, and geopolitical shifts, as well as significant financial and funding pressures.

Navigating complex change is never easy. Professor James Millar, convenor of Universities Scotland, was right when, in light of a £200m funding gap being recently evidenced across Scotland’s institutions, he argued the need to “recognise that complex systems rarely yield simple answers.”

Universities are now adapting and responding to these changes, including addressing what and how students are taught and how they are prepared for future success beyond the academy.

Across the University of Edinburgh and in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, we are engaged in making these informed decisions about what and how we teach our students, now and into the future, and how we give them the skills to succeed.

Key to this crucial work in the college is to establish a future-focused, coherent, and flexible curriculum that gives students meaningful choice.

Achieving these aims must include making changes to our current provision, including closing or consolidating degree programmes that are no longer in demand or serving the needs of our students.

The current context is challenging, but the challenges present an opportunity to shift the ‘arts v. science’ debate towards a constructive and holistic conversation about the future needs of students and the purpose of our universities: their importance, their personal, economic, and social significance, their relevance, and their future.