Universities UK blog

Broccoli, apprenticeships and the student market – dispatches from Conservative party conference

October 4, 2011 at 5:34 pm Vivienne Stern 1 comment

In his speech to the Tory faithful today, David Willetts described universities as a national asset like the Monarchy and the armed forces – how close to Tory hearts is that? Pretty close I suspect. He sang universities’ praises this afternoon, armed with a heads-up from the Times Higher league tables that the rest of us will see this Thursday, that even more UK universities are in the top 100 than last year.

Moving on to celebrating university-led innovations in cancer-beating broccoli, he also announced 10,000 higher-level apprenticeship places, building on recent large scale expansion of apprenticeships. Good news. Apprenticeships seem to be a very powerful way of engaging young people who don’t necessarily want to take the academic route, but who have the desire to progress through apprenticeships to level 4 and even degree level and beyond. It’s not yet a well-trodden path, but one which could grow and help widen participation.

I’ve been following Willetts on his rounds of the conference fringe. He joined us at Universities UK’s fringe, where we had a really meaty debate about the way the student market will operate in higher education. A lot of the discussion revolved around the proposals to control student numbers – essential if the system is to be affordable – but all the options have downsides for potential students and universities. Conservative conference 2011 has shown us that this is proving to be one of the most difficult aspects of the Government’s proposals.

Meanwhile, me and my sore feet are heading home after the University Alliance and 1994 group fringes this evening. If you have ever done party conferences you will be able to imagine how much I am looking forward to eating with a fork after 3 weeks of finger food!

Vivienne Stern

Entry filed under: About Higher Education, Access and admissions, Community and society, Research, Students. Tags: David Willetts. apprenticeships, student market.