In a new publication, University Alliance has set out a range of impactful priority actions for the government to take in their first 100 days in power.
UA’s latest policy briefing ‘Let’s Get Technical: The First 100 Days’ identifies policies that are cost-neutral or low-cost to deliver that could help professional and technical universities deliver the government’s agenda.
In partnership with government and industry, University Alliance argue that professional and technical universities can support the government’s five missions, by:
- Working with businesses to innovate and grow the economy;
- Training the next generation of healthcare, teaching and policing professionals so that our public services can thrive;
- Providing life-changing opportunities for a wide range of learners throughout their lifetime;
- Putting Britain at the forefront of the clean energy revolution.
Some of the headline proposals include:
- Launching a cross-government healthcare education taskforce, including representatives from across the higher education sector, to address the many challenges in training and growing the NHS workforce
- Including representatives from professional and technical universities on the industrial strategy council, to harness their significant expertise in using university-business partnerships to drive growth
- Allow more teacher training providers to gain accreditation by allowing those who were a ‘near miss’ in the last round of the Initial Teacher Training market review accreditation process an opportunity to become accredited. This will ensure more even geographic coverage of teacher training opportunities and support the government’s goal of recruiting 6,500 new teachers.
- Increasing student maintenance support to keep up with the cost of living, and reintroducing maintenance grants for those most in need, to ensure everyone who wants to can take up the opportunity of going to university.
- Implement a two year pause and review of the plan to scrap most BTECs. This week’s announcement by the Secretary of State falls well short of what is needed to alleviate the uncertainty facing young people, providers, and employers. To avoid a sharp increase in the number of young people disengaging from education, the government should urgently confirm that students can enrol on all 134 existing Applied General Qualifications up to and including the 2026/27 academic year.
Along with low-cost policy proposals to be enacted in the first one hundred days, the document also highlights additional steps to be taken in the medium and long-term to help find solutions to our most pressing local, national and global problems.
Vanessa Wilson, University Alliance CEO said: “Professional and technical universities stand ready to serve our nation. They have the “fresh thinking and new ideas” the government is looking for in abundance and should be at the heart of our national renewal.
Alliance universities are keen to act as strategic partners with government and business, enabled by higher education sector representation on the Industrial Strategy Council.
The government should fully exploit what universities can offer the country, Universities deliver on multiple fronts at national, regional and local level, but the policy landscape has often been disjointed. If the government takes a more strategic and joined-up approach to higher education, the sector will be better able to put its weight behind all five Missions.”
Professor Jane Harrington, Chair of University Alliance and Vice Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, said: “From recruiting 6,500 more teachers to developing innovation in our regions and investing in the future of the creative industries, the government can accelerate progress towards its aims by harnessing the power of professional and technical universities like those in the University Alliance. We are a thread that runs right through the five missions this government has set out.
There are some very fundamental challenges facing the higher education sector at the moment: the financial crisis caused by frozen university funding is just one of them. Not every problem is hard to solve though, and in this document we set out some very practical first steps the government could take to start getting the most out of our universities straight away.
Perhaps most importantly, we must ensure that every student is able to succeed at university by supporting them to meet their living costs. It is essential not only that everyone who wants to go to university has the opportunity to do so, but also that they have the opportunity to thrive while they are there.”
