This blog was authored by Rose Stephenson, Director of Policy at HEPI and Josh Freeman, Policy Manager at HEPI.
HEPI held an event at the Labour Party Conference with kind support from the University of Nottingham and the University of Sussex.
Having returned from the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool and dried out our shoes, bags and umbrellas, we round up the higher education themes we heard from three days of debate and discussion.
1. The new Government is a big fan of higher education.
Baroness (Jacqui) Smith, Minister for Skills, Further and Higher Education said at repeated events:
‘The higher education offer in the UK is a tremendous asset. It is a great enabler, expander of horizons and driver of innovation.’
Alex Sobel MP told the audience at the HEPI event:
‘Attending the University of Leeds radically changed my whole life.’
However, this love-in for HE was balanced with the recognition that both the sector and the student body are underfunded. Baroness Smith noted the need for a ‘short-term solution’ to the funding crisis for universities as well as the ‘long-term opportunity for change’. (Do we detect yet another enquiry into the future of higher education?) She added:
‘The Government recognises the financial change that is needed to bring financial sustainability for the sector. The Office for Students will be working alongside the Government to deliver financial sustainability.’
Alternative funding mechanisms for the sector were discussed. The potential for employer contributions was raised at almost every event (and not just by Johnny Rich – you can read more on Johnny’s Graduate Employer Levy funding concept in this HEPI collection). Universities UK’s Vivienne Stern also championed the idea of philanthropic donations to support the sector.
There was plenty of discussion about the return of maintenance grants. Alex Sobel MP was keen that students receive proper funding (which is both welcome and politically sensible given his estimate that between 40 and 60% of his constituents are students). He said:
‘There are two guiding principles for higher education: financial sustainability and fairness. Those from less privileged backgrounds should get a maintenance grant that covers at least their living costs.’
and
‘Students are doing too much paid work and have too little time to study, enjoy university, learn about life and have an enriching experience.
Tim Leunig, discussing his report at HEPI’s event, stated poignantly:
‘I got a maintenance grant. It changed my life.’
2. Universities have a civic duty to support policymakers
This was a theme of the King’s Policy Institute reception, where Baroness (Margaret) Hodge told the crowd:
‘Universities have a crucial role in supporting public policy development and enactment. The higher education sector needs to take its proper place in providing evidence and support to politicians. This should be seen as a core part of their civic responsibilities.’
Julia Gillard (former PM of Australia and Chair of the King’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership) added to this with:
‘Universities have a mandate to provide deep policy expertise that can help deliver the opposition’s promises in Government. The partnership between government and universities needs to be dynamic.’
Anand Menon (Director of UK in a Changing Europe) pulled no punches with his remarks on the topic, stating:
‘Damn right it’s a civic responsibility of universities to contribute to policy. If universities did their jobs properly, there wouldn’t be a need for think tanks.’ (Ouch!)
3. There should be more partnerships between further and higher education.
This concept was heavily endorsed in Labour’s manifesto, and it was interesting to hear it discussed widely while also attending events where the skills agenda and universities were discussed as mutually exclusive concepts.
Baroness Smith was keen on the idea of partnerships stating:
‘Better progression from further education to higher education would make a big difference. There should be more flexibility to access and delivery. There can’t just be one route.’
On this topic, Nick Forbes of the Purpose Coalition asked the exceptionally worded question:
‘In a more merged system, how can we stop HE and FE from playing hungry hippos with the funding?’
Peter Swallow MP challenged the false distinction between skills teaching and universities, stating:
‘We [lecturers, Peter is a former lecturer] need to get better at skills-based teaching. Skills can be seen as a dirty word. We need to get away from the idea of knowledge for knowledge’s sake and that university teaching is nothing about work in later life… Graduates need to be equipped with both knowledge and skills and [become] more rounded as individuals ready for the next stage in life.’
4. Missions, missions, missions…
If you attended the Labour Party Conference and left without being able to recite all five missions, you weren’t paying attention. We heard about them A LOT, as well as the role higher education has in achieving them.
If you didn’t come to conference, Labour’s missions are:
- to kickstart economic growth;
- to make Britain a clean energy superpower;
- to take back our streets;
- to break down barriers to opportunity; and
- to build an NHS fit for the future.
Sector commentators and politicians widely agreed that higher education would play an underpinning role in at least four of these missions. VCs from institutions offering degree apprenticeships in policing were keen to point out that they could score ‘five out of five’ in the I Spy book of Labour Party Missions.
5. The importance of the research undertaken in HE
Professor Shitij Kapur, Vice-Chancellor and Principle of King’s College London, explained to a crowded room:
‘The higher education sector undertakes 80% of non-business research in the UK.’
This was echoed by Jane Norman, Provost and incoming Interim Vice-Chancellor at the University of Nottingham, who told HEPI’s audience that:
‘Regional research-intensive universities like the University of Nottingham will support Labour’s growth and clean energy missions. For example, Nottingham is undertaking difficult decarbonisation work in the aerospace and maritime sectors.’
6. Widening participation was a strong theme
Widening access and improving participation is clearly high on the agenda of our new Minister. Baroness Smith stated:
‘We must widen access and tackle barriers to opportunity. The participation gap is persistent and widening. The access rate of students previously receiving free school meals to higher education is unacceptable.’
The UCAS stat that 70% of 18-year-olds from Wimbledon were accepted onto a university place this year compared to 13% from Barrow-in-Furness was repeated often.
7. The LLE is still in! (With caveats)
We are in for a bumper crop of complicated education policies to implement, with Baroness Smith stating that:
‘The LLE will have an important role in the future of higher education.’
With the caveat that:
‘Careful thought is being given as to how this can be delivered to prevent “dead-weight” costs and contribute to the Government’s missions.’
The Growth and Skills Levy was mentioned in the Prime Minister’s speech, with the introduction of new ‘foundation apprenticeships’ and a ‘rebalance [of] funding in our training system back to young people’. This looks to involve future restrictions on levy funding for Level 7 apprenticeships – with the new Skills England to make the call on which subjects get the chop.
8. The Government sees AI as more of an opportunity than a challenge
Like teachers, Baroness Smith argued that AI offers more benefits than harms. Key to the process of integrating AI is that educators should remain central in students’ education, to be supplemented by AI where helpful, but not replaced. Michael Lynas, UK Director of Duolingo, was equally firm that there should always be ‘humans in the loop’ and that AI should be governed by strong ethical principles.
In response to a question from the HEPI team, Baroness Smith said:
‘There was a panic after ChatGPT was launched, but we need to embrace the opportunities presented by AI.’
If we do, she argued, we will find solutions to the challenges around plagiarism and academic integrity it poses. In a sign of how the Skills England might achieve its aims, she also suggested AI might play a role in analysing skills gaps.
9. There is a mismatch in the understanding of mental health support for students.
Baroness Smith was keen to recognise the mental health support that higher education providers deliver to their students, and this should continue. However, Professor Sasha Roseneil, Vice Chancellor of Sussex, explained to the HEPI event that:
‘Universities can’t afford the mental health support they are being expected to provide.’
Further debates were had over where the line at which universities providing mental health support for students becomes an inappropriate alternative for an under resourced NHS service.
10. Regional devolution in England is going to be big.
Lord David Blunkett, speaking at at Right2Learn event explained that there will be a linking of adult learning budgets to combined authorities. Baroness Smith stated that:
‘There will be devolved responsibility and funding to mayoral authorities.’
And that:
‘Skills England will be thinking about how to close skills gaps, including at the regional level.’
The concept of ‘devolved responsibilities and funding to mayoral authorities’ in England was repeated at numerous events. This raises an interesting question, given that only 48% of England’s population is covered by a devolution deal (as of June 2024), and these deals have varying levels of power and maturity. In her conference speech, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, also announced that some local areas – Warwickshire, Surrey, Buckinghamshire, and Cornwall – will receive devolved powers on skills. Watch this space…
Professor Menon’s comment, although no doubt well-intentioned and reproduced here without the context that might refine its meaning, seems to me to be ill-conceived, as there is surely no equivalence between University research and think tanks. Universities, although exempt from the puerile notion of political balance paraded by the BBC, produce well-researched, peer-reviewed work, funded in a transparent way; think tanks, as a number of reputable academic studies have shown, are intellectually and politically partisan bodies. It is hard to argue that Universities have not done “their jobs properly” in identifying the threat and nature of “man-made (sic) climate change” and the imminence of tipping points, but that has not stopped think tanks from denying first that a problem exists, and more recently that we need to respond to it with immense urgency.
Some think thanks – we would argue not all!