Minister: looking at which groups don’t enter HE ‘doesn’t matter’

England’s universities minister has said that it “doesn’t matter about looking at which groups don’t get to university” because the emphasis should be on outcomes and what is in the “best interests” of individual students, while stressing that “we don’t necessarily want everybody to go to university”.

Michelle Donelan also told MPs on the Education Select Committee that the government would be bringing forward details on a “restructuring regime” for universities as a “last resort” for those in financial trouble following the pandemic crisis, and that ministers are “not excluding legislation” on free speech in universities.

Ms Donelan’s comments on university access are likely to alarm many in the sector, who fear that the government’s apparent desire to channel some students away from higher education into further education is likely to accentuate social divides.

The Office for Students, the English sector regulator established by the Conservative government in 2018, has set a target to eliminate the gap in entry rates at between the most and least represented groups at the most selective universities by 2038-39.

In her appearance before the committee, Ms Donelan returned to the theme of her speech criticising recent expansion of higher education and that of a recent speech by education secretary Gavin Williamson, in which he billed himself as “tearing up” Tony Blair’s 1999 target for 50 per cent of young people to enter higher education and instead prioritising a “German-style” further education system.

“We don’t necessarily want everybody to go to university; that was very much the essence of the secretary of state’s speech last week,” Ms Donelan told MPs.

"Whether you’re advantaged or disadvantaged, HE is not necessarily the best route to get where you want to go in life. I want to see a system that promotes the individual’s needs, and the individual’s desires in terms of their progression,” she added.

She set out an aim to “move away from this focus on how many students go to university” and focus on students “completing high-quality, academically rigorous courses that then lead to graduate jobs – that is the important measure we should be looking at”.

Caroline Johnson, a Conservative member of the committee, asked Ms Donelan “which groups are least likely to go to university” and “what is being done to support them” in “considering” higher education “as an option…where they have the capability to do so”.

The universities minister replied that “we do have record numbers of disadvantaged students going to university. There are still challenges within different sections of society, including white working-class students.

“But I actually don’t think it’s a good measure to look at anyway. It’s the wrong question, if you don’t mind me saying. Because it doesn’t matter about looking at which groups don’t get to university. It’s about making sure that those groups that do go complete, that [courses] lead to graduate jobs, but also looking at what’s in that student’s best interests.”

The focus should not be on “targets”, but on “the individual and unlocking social mobility, but true social mobility, not box-ticking and target-driven social mobility that makes us feel good, but social mobility that really leads to life chances being improved for these individuals”, continued Ms Donelan.

On access targets set by the OfS “for the next five years”, she said that she wanted to see universities emphasise outreach and “trying to lift the quality bar in schools, rather than simply trying to tick quotas; that’s not social mobility”.

The focus should be on providing role models, on students completing and getting graduate jobs, “much more about the journey than how many they [universities] get in in one year”.

On university finances, Tory MP and committee chair Robert Halfon asked the minister whether the government would “bail out” universities in trouble because of the crisis or introduce “managed restructuring” focused on “rebalancing” institutions towards the “skills needs” in the economy.

Ms Donelan said that the government would be coming forward with details of a “restructuring regime”, to be used in a “last resort scenario”.

“There will be conditions attached,” she added.

Asked about “challenges and opportunities” in the sector, Ms Donelan said that these had been “changed and shaped by Covid”, and included a need for universities to innovate and “diversify” their income, to focus on people’s needs to “reskill and upskill”. She aimed to be “incentivising” part-time study and degree apprenticeships, she added.

The minister also said that incentivising universities to provide degree apprenticeships will form “part of our response” to the Augar review of post-18 education “later in the year”.

On pay, Ms Donelan referred to vice-chancellors and senior university staff volunteering for pay cuts of “10 to 30 per cent” in the crisis. She added: “I want to see that, hopefully, continue and be the start of something.”

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com