上周，英国政府组建了新的商业创新和技能部，英国的高等教育和继续教育将由这个新的部级单位管理。没有人可以否认，高校是英国整个社会文化的摇篮，也是英国国力的根本。那么，为什么会将教育纳入一个主管经济发展的部委呢？
简短的回答为：新部委的使命将是构建英国在技能，知识和创新方面的综合能力，这些综合能力将会直接增强英国的竞争力，同时也会间接地促进英国的文化、信心和使命感。
英国需要遵循几条原则，才能实现既定的目标。首先，需要给大学和高校高度地自主，其次，更好地发挥高校的作用来促进经济发展，但基础科学和研究的地位是不容动摇的。
有些人可能会认为，高等教育不应该由一个主管商业经济的部门来负责，他们认为如果高校在这个部委中，可能会不受重视，或者经济成果可能会成为高校评估的标准。这样的理解是不对的。
经济和高校的需求可能会不同，但也并不是永远如此。将来有朝一日，他们会成为英国繁荣的文化和自信的屹立在世界舞台上相符相成的两个组成部分。
注：新成立的商业创新和技能部的部长为曼德尔森爵士
Education and business hand in hand
Last week, the government created the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which will have responsibility for higher and further education policy. Nobody would disagree that our universities and colleges are as much about the cultural bedrock of our society as the competitiveness of the economy. So why bring them into a department whose core remit is Britain's economic development?
The simple answer is that the mission of the new department is to build Britain's resources of skill, knowledge and creativity. These things drive our competitiveness directly, but also indirectly by reinforcing our cultural awareness, confidence and sense of our past and future.
Britain now needs to build on these strengths on the basis of a few basic principles. First, a high degree of autonomy for universities and further education has been central to their success. Second, it is possible to further boost the role of universities in generating our economic growth without in any way compromising the place of fundamental science or curiosity-driven research in their mix.
There will always be some who think that higher and further education policy does not belong in a department with business in its title. They assume that universities and colleges will somehow diminish in priority in a new department, or that economic outcomes will be the only benchmark for policy. They are wrong.
The needs of business and those of higher and further education are not always the same, and never will be. But they can and do touch and reinforce each other in important ways. At the end of the day, they are two parts of a single picture of a Britain that has the knowledge, confidence and character to prosper in a changing world.
• Lord Mandelson is the secretary of state for business, innovation and skills
（Source: Guardian，英国使馆文化教育处提供）
