IHE 2020 Policy Live
(programme subject to change)
TUESDAY 27 OCTOBER 2020
Tales of the unexpected: learning from 2020
10:00–11:15 Navigating the new world together: higher education after the storm (Click for the recording)
Day One. Session One.
Working in higher education, it has felt like 2020 has packed in more plot twists in eight months than Game of Thrones did in eight seasons. An explosion of online teaching and learning, with the full consequences still reverberating round the sector; a land grab into admissions by an ambitious new regulator, only to beat a hasty retreat; the radical return of student number controls, unable to withstand the hordes of students in need at the gates. Changes which in any other year would have felt era-defining have come down in a blizzard of policy, only to melt in the first light of the following day’s events.
Some policies and practice cannot help but echo from the sector’s past, while others offer glimpses of a future still to come. Which ones will prove short-lived, and which are here to stay? What are the main challenges and opportunities which lie ahead? How can we as a sector pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and take hold of our story, before the stories of the day take hold of us? In a time of crisis, we have needed to work together to survive, across the sector and with Government too. Will this model of leading-as-partners become our new normal, or will central authorities be allowed to set the agenda again? How can organisations like HESA, UCAS and QAA best support the sector to recover and rebuild together?
Chair:
Dr Roxanne Stockwell, Chair, Independent Higher Education, and Principal, Pearson College London
Speakers:
Paul Clark, Chief Executive, HESA
Clare Marchant, Chief Executive, UCAS
Aaron Porter, Associate Director (Governance), Advance HE, and Chair, BPP University
Vicki Stott, Deputy Chief Executive, QAA
14:00–15:00 Keynote: The Office for Students (Click for the recording)
Day One. Session Two.
The Office for Students celebrated its first full year of regulation in August, a milestone barely noticed with attentions turned elsewhere. Anniversaries are always a time for reflection, and this has been a year like no other, with dramatic shifts both foreseen and unforeseeable which are still being absorbed by OfS and the providers it regulates. Under pressure from government to reduce bureaucratic burden, with the role of regulators across education under the spotlight, and with a sector bursting at the seams with new models of provision, OfS must embark on its own transformational journey. Nicola Dandridge, OfS Chief Executive, will speak about the challenges she has faced, and the changes she has planned to provider registration and sector regulation in the year ahead. Nicola’s speech will be followed by a Q&A session.
Chair:
Alex Proudfoot, Chief Executive, Independent Higher Education
Speaker:
Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive, Office for Students
16:00–17:15 Data and outcomes: do the ends still justify the means? (click for the recording)
Day One. Session Three.
Does data still offer the best way of understanding the world around us? Do our outcomes in life tell us all we want to say about the journey? 2020 will be remembered a year when the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley. When everyone has felt like dropping out from time to time. When few would bet the house on their future employment prospects. The performance dashboards of higher education, constructed for another time a world away, are blinking themselves into oblivion under viral overload. But with a Government vexed by ‘low value’ HE and a Court of Appeal concerned by the clandestine use of statistics, the role of data in regulation will soon be under the microscope again in a major consultation on the quality and outcomes that students should expect.
Our expert panel will find out how we got here, what they expect the impact of the pandemic to look like in the data, and what lessons this might teach us about its power and its limitations in the best of times and the worst. Can the same data ever tell us what we want to know about both the smallest providers and the large? Where does the radical review announced of NSS leave the idea of student satisfaction? Are the ‘baselines’ crested by OfS fit for purpose, and what indeed is that purpose? Have we lost sight of the individual student and their interest?
Chair:
Joy Elliott-Bowman, Director of Policy and Development, Independent Higher Education
Speakers:
David Kernohan, Associate Editor, Wonkhe
Mark Corver, Founder, DataHE
Julian Gravatt, Deputy Chief Executive (Policy, Curriculum, Funding), Association of Colleges
Jessica Woodsford, Director for SEER, Applied Inspiration
WEDNESDAY 28 OCTOBER 2020
Lifelong ambition: building a tertiary education system
10:00–11:15 Let’s break this down: micro credentials and modular learning (click for the recording)
Day Two. Session Four.
The Government has called for a more flexible, granular and adaptive model of tertiary education. The Prime Minister himself has fired the starting gun on a new race for lifelong learning opportunities which respond to the changing needs of workers, industry and local economies, and he has promised a competitive funding package to match. The world of micro credentials and modular learning has arrived.
This session will explore what that means in practice, and the evidence which has been stacking up over the last decade that micro credentials and modular learning can work. We will also consider the tools we already have, including formal credit frameworks, innovative teaching partnerships, and different delivery models, and discuss how we can use them better to help the sector adapt to meet the changing needs of learners in the 21st century.
Chair:
Brian Rock, Director of Education & Training, Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust, and Board Member, Independent Higher Education
Speakers:
Tim Plyming, Managing Director for Microcredentials, The Open University
Professor Sue Rigby, Vice-Chancellor, Bath Spa University, and Chair, QAA Credit Framework Review
13:00–14:00 Keynote: the Government’s vision for higher education and skills (click for the recording)
Day Two. Session Five.
The Prime Minister has announced a major expansion of post-18 education and training, recognising that we all need to learn new skills and knowledge throughout our lives, no matter how good an undergraduate degree may be. The higher education loan system will be opened up to technical and professional courses at every level, and funding for modular learning and micro credentials is here and here to stay. As Minister of State for Universities since February 2020, Michelle Donelan has certainly had a baptism of fire in her first high-profile government job, with higher education rarely out of the headlines since August, and an ambitious reform agenda to implement which will be central to levelling up our future prosperity, as the country strives to build back better from the economic aftermath of a global pandemic.
Following the Minister’s speech, IHE’s Chief Executive will respond, before handing over to our expert panel to consider the implications for independent providers and the wider higher education sector.
Chair:
Alex Proudfoot, Chief Executive, Independent Higher Education
Speakers:
Michelle Donelan MP, Minister of State for Universities, Department for Education
Mary Curnock Cook CBE, Chair, The Dyson Institute
Joy Elliott-Bowman, Director of Policy and Development, Independent Higher Education
Rachel Hewitt, Director of Policy and Advocacy, Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)
16:00–17:15 Making it work: new models for technical and professional education (click for the recording)
Day Two. Session Six.
Independent higher education providers can look like the personification of the phrase “learning by doing”. Long before they ever dreamed of degrees, student loans and government regulation, independent providers dominated the market in skills, technical and professional learning, producing ‘graduates’ who met the needs of their industries and localities. But where do we fit in a world only just waking up to the challenge of up-skilling, re-skilling and ‘levelling up’?
In this session will hear from government and regulators on the programmes being developed to meet the urgent needs of a nation slipping into its highest unemployment rate in decades. We will explore how these programmes will be regulated, and how independent providers can access the associated funding. We will hear from an IHE member pushing past the digital frontier of professional skills education, and explore how student demand might soon catch up to these short technical or professional courses.
Chair:
David Howell, CEO, Met Film School, and Board Member, Independent Higher Education
Speakers:
Tim Harris, Executive Dean, QAHE
Jessica Hunt, Senior Advisor, The Behavioural Insights Team
Ana Osbourne, Deputy Director (Technical Education Occupations & Qualifications), The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education
Jack Thomlinson, Deputy Director (HE Quality & Regulation), Department for Education
THURSDAY 29 OCTOBER 2020
Global Designs: UK education on the world stage
10:00–11:15 Qualifying for the Champion’s league: strategies for global success (click for the recording)
Day Three. Session Seven.
One year into the UK’s International Education Strategy, and as we prepare to leave the EU single market, the Government has just appointed its International Education Champion, Professor Sir Steve Smith, and is putting the finishing touches to his initial target list of countries which are ready to invest in a British education. This session will explore how, with Sir Steve’s help and a post-pandemic recalibration of the UK Strategy, we can grow our international student numbers and export earnings to new heights.
Steve will speak about his ambitions for the new role, while the latest data and insights from recruitment experts IDP will shine a spotlight on the UK’s market performance this year and the strategies pursued by the most successful global players. A panel of IHE members with global ambitions will share their thoughts on the UK’s strategy for exporting education and how to ensure that SMEs and independent providers can play their fullest part. We will look at the opportunities that these particular providers have already spotted and seized beyond their core UK market, and what challenges remain for them to unleash their potential in international recruitment and transnational delivery which the Government and its new International Education Champion could help them overcome.
Chair:
James Pitman, Managing Director of Development (UK & Europe), Study Group, and Vice Chair, Independent Higher Education
Speakers:
Professor Sir Steve Smith, UK International Education Champion
Patrick Whitfield, Group Commercial Director, IDP Connect
Rob Cowan, CEO and Founder, Point Blank Music School
Rory Curley, CEO, Central Film School
Dr Janet Rose, Principal, Norland College, and Board Member, Independent Higher Education
13:00–14:15 It takes a (global) village: supporting international students to career success (click for the recording)
Day Three. Session Eight.
One of the first announcements Boris Johnson made as Prime Minister, under the unmistakeable influence of his brother, was to create the new Graduate Route and give international students two years to work in the UK after their degree, unencumbered by thoughts of subjects, skill levels, or sponsorship. With the route confirmed to launch in 2021, our expert panel will ask a simple question: are we ready? The UK’s work culture might be very different from what they are used to; will the support available be enough to help them make a success of this flexible new route? Are we doing all we can to prepare employers and our industries to make the most of what these accomplished graduates have to offer?
Drawing on the different perspectives of the Home Office, careers services, employers and international student advisors, this session will delve into what needs to happen now to ensure that international graduates are set up for success, so that they can make the same or an even greater contribution to the UK’s economic recovery as their British classmates, and can depend on the same level of support for pursuing their personal and professional goals regardless of where they decide to go when they finish their studies.
Chair:
Maddalaine Ansell, Director of Education, British Council
Speakers:
Sarah Cooper, Careers Consultant, University of Bristol
Anne Marie Graham, Chief Executive, UKCISA
Paul Jeffrey, Head of Student Migration Policy, Home Office
Anant Rangan, International second year LLB (Hons) student, University of Birmingham
15:30–16:45 Windows on the world: reflecting on global lessons for UK HE (click for the recording)
Day Three. Session Nine
As the Government’s second Higher Education Green Paper in five years fast approaches, it is time to reflect on where we are headed. Bringing together some of the most incisive international experts in education and skills policy, with real-life experience of changing systems, this closing session will look both ways: to the rapid shifts of the recent past, and to one or many visions of the future.
What can we learn from the implementation of tertiary education policies around the world? What are the risks and opportunities in particular for small, specialist and independent HE providers as governments across the UK seek to drive their apprenticeships, skills, and life-long learning agendas? Will a steady pace of change be the only constant in the years ahead, as we strive to meet both the restless demands of regulators and the urgent needs of students? Or will the government’s policy agenda run aground on the economic realities of post-pandemic Britain and expose the limitations of any regulatory framework to control the uncontrollable forces of nature?
Chair:
Dr Roxanne Stockwell, Chair, Independent Higher Education, and Principal, Pearson College London
Speakers:
Viktoria Kis, Policy Analyst and manager of the vocational education and training project, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Anthony McClaran, Vice-Chancellor, St Mary’s University, and former CEO of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA, Australia)
Alex Usher, President, Higher Education Strategy Associates