The Guardian view on universities: arts cuts are the tip of an iceberg | Editorial

Ministers are ultimately responsible for weakening the arts and humanities. They are taking the country backwards

The announcement that the University of East Anglia is to cut 31 arts and humanities posts – out of a total of 36 academic job cuts – has rightly prompted anger as well as dismay. UEA became a literary flagship among the new universities that opened in the 1960s. This year is its 60th birthday, and since 1970 it has been home to one of the most famous creative writing courses in the world: founded by the novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson, its students have included Anne Enright, Ian McEwan and the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro.

There is shock, among alumni and observers, that the financial problems of the UK’s higher education sector now threaten such prestigious institutions. Once celebrated for their innovative approaches, 1960s campus universities were where different kinds of courses were developed. Creative writing is one example; media, development and women’s studies are others. In cutting the arts and humanities in these universities, managers and policymakers are turning back the clock – at a time when, arguably, there has never been a greater need for courageous innovation. Any idea that the risks are limited to the post-1992 universities should be junked.

Michael Clarke obituary

My friend and ex-husband Michael Clarke, who has died aged 74, was an expert in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages. He not only taught for many years but became involved in teacher training and also helped to devise various courses at home and abroad.

Mike was born in Liverpool, to Eileen (nee Sinker), a barmaid, and Mike, a bricklayer, and had two younger sisters, Elaine and Jan. He attended St Francis Xavier’s Jesuit college – where his love of languages, hillwalking and football began – and went on to Westfield College (now Queen Mary University of London) in east London, graduating with a degree in classics in 1969.