Liz Truss must avoid populism and plan for the long term

How will the UK’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, select her priorities from among all the issues jostling for attention? When it comes to higher education, the risk is that she cherry-picks some populist issues – from free speech to the “culture wars” or defunding “pointless” degrees. This would be a mistake, especially if it takes the place of longer-term planning beyond the length of the current political cycle.

There are three areas in particular where a sustained focus from the prime minister could make a real difference.

First, the key test for any prime minister should be how they respond to the needs of the hardest-to-reach people. The UK is ranked one of the most unequal societies in Europe and this is reflected in who makes it into higher education and who succeeds when they get there. Pupils eligible for free school meals are less likely to enter higher education, almost twice as likely to drop out before the start of their second year, and typically earn roughly 10 per cent less than other graduates. Disadvantaged people are the most adversely affected by the current cost-of-living crisis, putting even the modest recent progress made in raising educational participation at risk.

So while we need sustained focus on improving access overall, we also need more targeted interventions to continue improving outcomes for the most excluded minorities. After all, while we may have hit Tony Blair’s target of 50 per cent of young people going into higher education, there are still groups where participation remains in single digits: just 7 per cent of young Gypsy/ Roma people accessed higher education by the age of 19 in 2019-20 and the figure for care leavers is much the same.

The change of prime minister might see some proposed reforms resurface that could limit access to education, such as minimum entry requirements and new student number caps. It would be a disaster if the opportunities for people from disadvantaged groups deteriorated further in the current crisis. To avoid this, we need a real commitment from the Treasury to those most excluded from our society, a set of education ministers with sufficient clout in Whitehall and some joined-up thinking across a wide range of government departments.

Secondly, we need the new administration to live up to the Conservatives’ existing manifesto commitment on research spending, which is to devote 2.4 per cent of GDP to research and development by 2027. It is, quite frankly, a disgrace that the minister for science role was vacant all summer – we can’t get anywhere near 2.4 per cent either by accident or by business as usual. Success calls for concerted attention at the highest levels. Setting the target is the easy bit: ensuring the most conducive research environment possible will be much harder.

For example, the UK’s potential exclusion from Horizon Europe is one specific problem where a laissez-faire attitude just won’t do. Even though we have shifted from a prime minister who backed Brexit to one who, at least originally, backed Remain, the challenges involved in persuading our European partners to let us in are no smaller than they were, especially without resolution of the issues affecting Northern Ireland.

Long-term thinking also requires planning to ensure that there are enough skilled researchers in the pipeline – it is they who will develop the next generation of vaccines and be at the forefront of tackling climate change. That calls for support packages for PhD students and early career researchers that rival those of our European neighbours and competitors, some of whom offer salaries and pension plans to their doctoral students. How else will the UK attract the best international research talent, especially now we are outside the European Union?

Third, we need to see the new government deliver on levelling up – or whatever new term is adopted to describe improving and equalising opportunities throughout the UK. This will be even harder to achieve than the first two challenges and must entail a clearer focus on reskilling and upskilling. So let’s hope the new prime minister does not cancel or water down the proposed Lifelong Loan Entitlement, which the outgoing prime minister, Boris Johnson, listed as one of his greatest achievements in his valedictory speech this week.

Let’s also hope the new administration reconsiders the defunding of popular Level 3 (pre-university) courses, such as BTECs, which the Department for Education’s own impact assessment showed will disproportionately affect students with special educational needs and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

None of this will be easy. But it will be worth it, because a country that considers its long-term educational strategy will fare much better than one that opts for short-term fixes and populist posturing.

Laura Brassington is policy manager at the Higher Education Policy Institute.