With Rishi Sunak¡¯s reshuffled government potentially under a year from a UK general election, sector figures see it following a ¡°diminished vision of higher education¡± whereby the idea of rebalancing towards apprenticeships is likely to be rhetoric only, though there is hope for a reset on international students.

As some tipped an election for October 2024, the government¡¯s King¡¯s Speech setting out its legislative agenda for the coming parliament said that ¡°proposals will be implemented to?reduce the number of?young people studying poor-quality university degrees and increase the number undertaking high-quality apprenticeships¡±. That appeared to refer to?previously announced plans to introduce a system of student number controls in England for courses falling below the Office for Students¡¯ quality baselines.

Vivienne Stern, the Universities UK chief executive, said the organisation had ¡°spent the last couple of weeks trying to fend off a proposed restriction on level 7 [equivalent to a master¡¯s degree] apprenticeships¡±.

¡°Apparently, there is concern that companies are using the levy to fund high-level management education, and some in government want to prevent that,¡± she added.

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This contradicted evidence that ¡°more high-quality management training is exactly what the economy needs if we are to close the productivity gap¡±, argued Ms Stern. ¡°So I hope that, when government talks about ¡®increasing high-quality apprenticeships¡¯, they don¡¯t end up doing the opposite.¡±

The government¡¯s briefing document published alongside the King¡¯s Speech made it clear there was no legislation planned to implement student number controls.

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Jonathan Simons, head of the education practice at political consultancy Public First, said: ¡°I¡¯d expect it to be absolutely nothing other than rhetoric. Recruiting is already happening for courses starting in September 2024 ¨C let alone January 2024 or spring 2024 for those providers with multiple entrance points ¨C so it¡¯s unfeasible for anything to happen before courses starting in 2025, and the election is just going to time them out on this.¡±

Asked what the government might seek to do on higher education between now and an election, Sir Chris Husbands, the Sheffield Hallam University vice-chancellor, said the answer might be ¡°not very much¡±.

Increasing demand for apprenticeships ¡°driven not by government but by employers¡±, so growth included 16- to 20-year-olds, would involve ¡°a complex re-engineering of the skills system, and no government can do that in its final year¡±, he added.

Mr Sunak recently sacked Suella Braverman ¨C who often pushed to reduce international student numbers as a means to reducing net migration ¨C as home secretary, replacing her with former foreign secretary James Cleverly.

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Ms Stern said this ¡°should be an opportunity for a reset¡­Given that international students bring over ?40 billion to the UK, it is curious that a government focused on economic growth has been trying so hard to put them off.¡±

More generally, Sir Chris said, it ¡°really does seem as though the current government is largely positioning itself around a very diminished vision of higher education; Labour has a more expansive vision.

¡°The challenge for both is to fix the funding base for the sector as inflation erodes the fee and pushes up costs. There¡¯s not enough evidence that either the government or, in public, the opposition have grappled with that.¡±

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com