Guest blog by Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham
What does the future hold for universities? The University of Buckingham is hosting the UK’s first Higher Education Festival covering all issues facing the sector.
The Universities Minister Jo Johnson, the Shadow Higher Education Minister Gordon Marsden, the Director of HEPI Nick Hillman and UCAS’s Chief Executive Mary Curnock Cook are among the speakers at the two-day festival on September 8th and 9th 2016. I’ll also be speaking.
The theme is: Universities of the Future: How to Prepare Now. Topics include the new HE Bill, the impact of technology on HE, social mobility and the significance of university rankings.
Other speakers include:
- philosopher Roger Scruton;
- the head of admissions at the University of Oxford, Samina Khan;
- the co-founder of West London Free School, Toby Young;
- the author and broadcaster, Ed Smith; and
- the Editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Phil Baty.
I am thrilled to be launching the inaugural University of Buckingham Festival of Higher Education. You won’t get a better line-up of top names from the HE sector. As well as speaking they will be taking part in probing panel sessions on all the most important issues.
So much is changing in the university world, technologically, politically, socially and financially and this is a great opportunity to learn more and meet leading HE practitioners to help with shaping all our futures.
The festival will be modelled on the hugely successful Telegraph Festival of Education which I started at Wellington College six years ago and which has gone on to be the biggest conference in the school calendar with over 300 speakers.
It will appeal to academic staff, administrators and managers in the HE and FE sector and teachers in secondary schools who are looking for new insights into how the sector is changing and what it might look like, well into the future.
Further details at http://www.hefestival.com.