The full transcript of the Minister's address on 26 November at the IHE Annual Conference 2024:
Hello and thank you to Independent Higher Education for inviting me to contribute today. I’m sorry that I can’t be with you in person, but I’m discovering that the House of Lords is a busy place for an Education minister.
But I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to speak to a wide range of higher education providers, bodies and groups over the last couple of months, and I’m pleased to be speaking to you today.
I know IHE represents many small and medium-sized independent providers of tertiary education and training across the UK, an extremely important part of our sector, as well as larger education businesses operating across multiple disciplines.
The diversity of our world leading higher education system is a real strength and we want to engage with each and every part of the sector to ensure the future higher education system works for providers, students and for the nation.
As many of you will have heard me say before, I passionately believe in education for education’s sake: a more educated society is happier, healthier, more cohesive, and socially, economically and culturally richer. This is why supporting a broad range of higher education options is core to this Government’s vision for a thriving nation.
I’m enthusiastic about the contribution of your sector, but I also recognise that you’re facing real challenges, and we need to put our world-leading higher education sector on a secure footing. This is why we have taken the tough decision to increase maximum fees, to support higher education providers.
However, we recognise that this is asking students to make an increased investment. It is therefore only right to ask higher education providers to demonstrate, in return for this increased investment, that they deliver the very best outcomes both for those students and for the entire country.
We have therefore set out five priorities for reform which ask higher education providers to:
- Play a stronger role in expanding access and improving outcomes for disadvantaged students;
- Make a stronger contribution to economic growth;
- Play a greater civic role in their communities;
- Raise the bar further on teaching standards; and
- Drive a sustained efficiency and reform programme.
Ensuring that the opportunities you create are available to all is central to this government’s mission. I know that many of you are doing great work to widen access and support successful outcomes for those students least likely to go into higher education. We want the sector to go further, to be more ambitious and commit to delivering strong and robust access and participation plans; well, this is our challenge to you, and I know that you will embrace it.
This government is mission-led and central to that is breaking down barriers to opportunity. We all know that higher education can open the door to opportunity for many and I’m sure you share my belief that good quality teaching is fundamental to that.
That’s why we’ve made a commitment to raise teaching standards in higher education. Our aspiration is for every student to experience the highest quality teaching and support. Pedagogy is at the centre of every higher education course and every student’s success.
This is not about singling out any particular groups of providers. It’s about striving for continuous improvement across the board to enhance the experience of every student.
By recognising and celebrating the impact of education providers of different shapes and sizes, we can help prospective students find the opportunities that are right for them.
In all the pillars of our reform programme, I know that there is a lot of good practice already underway, and we want to work in partnership with you to deliver on these priorities. We will set out further details on our plans for higher education reform by next summer and I look forward to talking to you about how we develop that.
I note that many of you have been nominated for IHE awards for 2024, with the winners to be announced in a few days’ time. May I take this opportunity to wish all of those nominated the best of luck and to thank all of you for celebrating excellence and innovation within your membership.
I look forward to working with you all and learning from your work to create a sustainable future for our world leading higher education sector that provides even more opportunities for individuals to succeed and to flourish and which strengthens the social, cultural and economic fabric of the country.
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