Once they have completed their degrees, they have a much better idea of what they have gained and how much benefit it will be to them. So it makes sense for them to contribute afterwards.It is perhaps surprising that the Welsh Education Secretary is so calculating about her position. One might expect her to employ a little more tub-thumping, but then she probably saves that for Labour Party meetings. “I am entirely content with them paying towards their higher education,” she declares. “But I am extremely antagonistic to the idea that people have to pay fees upfront.” That’s because young people starting out on a degree don’t know what they are letting themselves in for. They don’t know how well they will be taught or whether the degree will be any use in the marketplace, she points out. She wants to be sure the introduction of variable fees does not exacerbate this.She is not against top-up fees in principle, she emphasises.

So Welsh universities and higher education colleges can rest easy for that one academic year, 2006-7. They will be taken care of for those 12 months, though after that who knows what will happen.Davidson announces all that before saying she has two very clear agendas. One is to ensure that higher education institutions in Wales can be world-class The second is to operate on the basis of evidence. As Welsh Education Secretary she has pursued a policy of widening participation with more passion than her English colleagues and says that up-front tuition fees cut against encouraging more students from disadvantaged backgrounds into higher education. “What I have said is that at that point we will have a clear idea about what the impact of the variable fees will be on budgets and which courses and higher education institutions will be charging the extra amount.”Significantly, she adds that she has committed the Welsh Assembly to making up the gap in funding that would result if top-up fees are introduced in England in 2006, bringing in lots of lucre for English higher education. “Jane Davidson is burying her head in the sand,” said the head of one Welsh higher education institution.The decision to put off a decision on top-up fees may, however, prove to be a canny one.

Davidson couches her policy in the language of pragmatism rather than ideology. “We will not know how many English institutions are proposing to charge top-up fees until they publish their plans in 2005,” she explains. Certainly, the Welsh universities are anxious about what will happen to them in the long term if their English rivals are able to charge more and thereby boost their funding and their competitive position. That way, she has kept Welsh Labour MPs on side and made friends with the National Union of Students in Wales and the Welsh branches of the lecturers’ unions, though the Welsh higher education institutions are less sanguine.If variable fees are introduced in England, as expected, the politics could change. The likelihood is that Davidson would have found it impossible, given the Welsh electorate’s inclination towards social justice and community ties, to follow the Prime Minister’s lead and push top-up fees through the Assembly So she took the next best route and postponed the issue. He is facing a rebellion from Labour MPs that could spell defeat.

While we welcome the assembly’s commitment not to introduce them in the current assembly, we want them to maintain this position, which is supported by the overwhelming majority of the population.. Just as Welsh schools have developed their own personality to set them apart from their English counterparts so Welsh politicians have fashioned a distinct identity for the universities in the principality. Top-up fees – so unpopular among the English electorate – will not be happening in Wales, at least not during this term of the Welsh Assembly, which runs until 2007. That way Jane Davidson, the Welsh Education Secretary, got herself off a difficult hook. It is not for nothing that this attractive and articulate woman is being tipped as the next First Minister.The Government’s proposal to allow universities to charge up to £3,000 a year is giving Tony Blair a bad headache. If top-up fees are introduced in England, more Welsh students may try to study at home, but universities in Wales could be flooded with applications from students in England. Someone will have to lose out.DAVID WARNER Principal of Swansea Institute of Higher EducationWales is wisely taking a wait-and-see attitude, and I’m sure that during the next few months there will be some interesting internal debates about whether or not to introduce top-up fees.BARRY JOHNSON Assistant general secretary of Wales for the Association of University Teachers (AUT)The AUT is opposed to top-up fees.