CGHE Webinar 68

What is a university education and where is it going? Critical reflections by David Willetts and two respondents

Date: Thursday, 11 January 2018 11:30 am - 2:00 pm

Location: Jeffrey Hall, UCL Institute of Education

Speaker(s):

Claire Callender, IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society and Birkbeck
Simon Marginson, University of Oxford
David Willetts, Resolution Foundation
James Wilsdon, University of Sheffield

Degree level education in the UK has grown from a small elite system to take in almost half of the school leaver age group. British universities are among the world’s most successful, as shown by their research performance and their attractiveness to international students, yet a never ending source of controversy at home.

Not enough participation, or too many graduates? Highways for upward social mobility, or drivers of inequality? Fair sharers of public and private costs, or engines of graduate debt?

In A University Education;, released by Oxford University Press in November 2017, the most influential recent Minister for Higher Education, Lord David Willetts, reflects critically on where the universities have come from and where they are going, on his own transformative system reforms – including the £9k fee regime, the uncapping of student numbers and the entry of new providers – and on the enduring power of higher education to expand people’s lives.

At this seminar Lord Willetts will discuss the main themes of the book, with responses from Professor James Wilsdon, CGHE Programme Leader, and Professor Simon Marginson, Director of CGHE, followed by questions and all-in audience participation in what promises to be a lively discussion. The seminar will be chaired by Professor Claire Callender, Deputy Director of CGHE.

Download the presentation

Watch the video

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HSR8CaPyfiA%3Fecver%3D1

Professor Claire Callender

Claire Callender is Professor of Higher Education Studies at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. She is a Deputy Director of CGHE. Claire led on CGHE Project 5, ‘Student loan debt and graduate decision-making’ which explored the impact of income-contingent student loan debt on English graduates’ lives using both quantitative and qualitative methods. It showed how loan debt can have negative effects on graduates’ lives.

Professor Simon Marginson

Simon Marginson is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Oxford, founding Director of the ESRC/RE Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), Joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education, and a Professorial Associate with the University of Melbourne. Simon’s research is focused primarily on global and international higher education, the global science system, higher education in East Asia, the contributions of higher education, and higher education and social inequality. Simon led CGHE’s project 8 which investigated the public good role of higher education in ten countries. The project found that while a broad notion of public good has been largely emptied out of policy in the English-speaking countries, where economic definitions of individualised pecuniary value are dominant, recognition of the broader individual and collective outcomes of higher education continues in different ways in other jurisdictions including France, Finland, South Korea and China. The study in England discovered however that despite the narrow economic framing used by Westminster policy makers, both higher education practitioners and policy professionals believe that higher education makes a large and multiple contribution to both national and global public goods.

David Willetts

The Rt Hon. Lord David Willetts is the Executive Chair of the Resolution Foundation and has written widely on economic and social policy. He served as Minister for Universities and Science (2010-2014). Lord Willetts is a visiting Professor at King’s College London, Governor of the Ditchley Foundation, Chair of the British Science Association and a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He is an Honorary Fellow of Nuffield College Oxford.

James Wilsdon

Professor James Wilsdon leads CGHE’s local higher education engagement programme. He is Professor of Research Policy and Director of Research, Impact and Innovation in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield. His research interests include research policy in the UK and Europe; scientometrics; the impact agenda; public engagement in research; and the role of evidence and expertise in policymaking.