Universities UK blog

Higher education centre stage at Labour conference

September 28, 2011 at 12:28 pm Vivienne Stern 2 comments

After hearing Ed Miliband speak at the Labour Party conference, it’s clear that higher education again assumes a fairly totemic status in a leader’s speech which promised the country a ‘new bargain based on Britain’s values’. 
 
In his speech, Miliband pledged to young people that ‘I won’t let you be priced out of your future’, underlining his announcement made over the weekend that if he were in Government now he would cap university fees at £6000. I worry that this rather helps cement the idea that students have to pay upfront, a perception which the sector and the Independent Taskforce on Student Finance Information have been working hard to counter. But we have to be pleased to see Labour moving away from their Graduate Tax proposals – they remain unworkable because of difficulties in defining who should pay, how payments are collected and, of course, the thorny issue of whether the Treasury would ever pass on the income to universities.
 
The £6000 cap announcement has sparked some pretty warmish debate on the fringe. UUK’s fringe on widening participation in higher education was so packed that we had to turn people away! Gareth Thomas MP, shadow higher education spokesperson joined our chief executive Nicola Dandridge, NUS president Liam Burns, and the Guardian’s Jeevan Vasagar on the panel to discuss this perennially critical topic, no less so because of the Government’s White paper proposals. There was a notable degree of consensus around the likelihood that the Government’s AAB+ policy could damage participation by people from less privileged backgrounds, because higher socio-economic groups gain proportionately more AAB grades.

Overall, the fact that Ed Miliband’s opening announcement centred on higher education and that it sparked such heated debate on the fringe circuit means I coming away from Liverpool confident that, as we move towards a higher education Bill, there will be definite scope next year to work with Labour MPs and Peers to work on and improve the plans for higher education reform.

Vivienne Stern.

Entry filed under: About Higher Education, Fees and funding. Tags: Ed Miliband, Labour Party conference.