Humanities courses are in danger across the UK, with history facing “unprecedented turbulence” and falling student numbers doing “collateral damage” to English, it has been warned.
The Royal Historical Society has warned that the study of history is in a “state of unprecedented turbulence and uncertainty” in UK higher education.
In a statement, the organisation said the most conspicuous signs of turmoil were department cuts, staff dismissals and the closing of degrees – situations that had become “all too familiar”.
And where compulsory redundancies had been avoided, historians had faced “continuous cycles of voluntary severance, with staff leaving either because the prospect of remaining in post is intolerable, or to save the employment of younger colleagues”, it said.
