Birkbeck welcomes Universities UK’s ‘Opportunity, Growth and Partnership: A Blueprint for Change’
Birkbeck will be contributing to future debate by addressing a range of points that are touched upon in UUK’s report.
Birkbeck has welcomed the Universities UK publication ‘Opportunity, Growth and Partnership: A Blueprint for Change’, which sets out a package of reform to stabilise, mobilise and then maximise the contribution of UK universities to economic growth and widening opportunity for all.
In the decade since the current funding system was introduced, the sector has become a political football. Drawn into broader debates about culture, demography, and economy, which have often been cast in partisan and polarising terms; it has been on the defensive in terms of the media and political agenda. As underlying funding for its core educational and research activities has deteriorated, universities have too often had operate in a ‘crisis response’ mode.
Birkbeck, like other Universities UK members, recognises that with the change in government – and with new minsters signalling an appetite to pause and review – it is vital for the sector to explain its successes in delivering in its core educational and research missions, and their wider cultural, economic, and social impact. The UUK report is a timely intervention which begins to turn the conversation in this manner. We should be proud that UK universities are a major national success story. They have a vital local impact alongside global reach.
As well as signalling a more proactive approach to championing the positive value added by higher education in the UK, the blueprint for change includes a lengthy ‘shopping list’ of suggestions for new Ministers.
Birkbeck supports an approach which starts with immediate measures to build confidence in international and home recruitment and promote sector-wide financial sustainability. We also welcome following this up with further consideration of the ways in which changes in funding and regulation can best support a sector rich in diversity, with institutions of different sizes and shapes being able to choose distinctive paths, appropriate to their mission.
At a time when there are an increasing range of delivery models and increasing choice for students, it is important that interventions do not simply prop up the historical residential campus model of university education, with all its implicit limitations in terms of impact and reach.
Future interventions will need to be informed by a renewed vision for tertiary education in the UK. It is the responsibility of universities and their communities to foster a broad, open and inclusive debate that will allow a compelling vision to inform solutions that stick.
The development of a long-term vision for UK HE involves addressing fundamental questions. These include considering the balance between public funding and employer and student contributions towards the costs of quality higher education, the need for better support for lifelong learning, and for flexibility and variety in teaching delivery. The Manifesto on which the current government was elected stated unequivocally that the current higher education funding system was broken, in that it did not work for students or for universities.
Birkbeck will be contributing to future debate by addressing a range of points that are touched upon in UUK’s report.
Professor Matt Innes, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Corporate) at Birkbeck, said: "Government must look at the potential of a graduate contribution as opposed to a loan system.
"The growing regulatory burden is in danger of stifling innovation, and time and thought is needed to ensure that the Office for Students operates in a proportionate manner informed by risk.
"There is also a need to build funding and regulatory arrangements that support, rather than penalise, flexibility and lifelong learning. It is imperative that gaps that impede progression between different funding and regulatory regimes under which adults can access education and skills are eradicated."