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Statement from the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Patrick McGhee on the Higher Education White Paper ‘Students at the Heart of the System’

Sunday 9 October 2011

John Charles

“We welcome the clarification provided by the publication of the White Paper, not least because it provides much-needed and long-awaited guidance to the university sector as to where the Government is going with its plans for higher education. We support the sentiment of putting students in the driving seat, but we are not sure that the reality of the Government’s proposals matches up to their rhetoric of responding to market demand and providing room for growth.

We are however pleased to see that the widening participation premium will be continued. Universities are vital to help accelerate social mobility, but the sector will not achieve that by focusing on students whose parents and grandparents also went to university. UEL is proud of its record on widening participation; many of our students are the first in their family to go to higher education and succeed in business, research and the professions. We attract large numbers of students from groups under-represented elsewhere in higher education: mature entrants, black, Asian, and minority ethnic students, and students from less privileged backgrounds. We are continuing to build on this record through outreach work in east London, Essex and the broader south east.

We welcome the news that the Government is increasingly recognising universities’ role in employability and enterprise skills. We at UEL have focused on these for years, and our graduate employment is above our benchmark figure and our record on start-up survival is enviable. We recognise, though, that these are tough times for graduates, and even though graduates still enjoy  much healthier job opportunities than non-graduates, we need to focus on employability and enterprise even more. That’s why UEL is moving to a full five-year post-graduation service of employment support, including a year’s free space in our business incubation centre for budding entrepreneurs, and funding for hundreds of paid internships every year as part of our support package for 2012 entrants.

Most crucially, however, we remain very concerned at the pace and scale of changes being proposed.  We know from our extensive outreach in schools and colleges that students aiming for 2012 entry already find the new system extremely confusing.  We urge the Government to fully engage with the sector in the coming months to ensure a stable and sustainable transition. In particular we would urge the Government to consult with the sector on ‘core and margin’ proposals, an untested and unpiloted additional level of complexity.

We are also sorry to see that the Government has not gone much further in relaxing the overall cap on student numbers. If the Government is serious about the importance of higher education for its social mobility agenda, then they need universities like UEL to expand and meet the demand that continues to grow even in the context of higher fees. Allowing only cheaper HE provision to expand forces students into studying cut-price, flat-pack degrees when they would prefer to attend a university that continues to invest in research, teaching and the student experience. 

We await further details of many of the proposals in the White Paper, and look forward to engaging with the Government on the implementation over coming months.”

Notes to Editors

The University of East London (UEL) is a global learning community with over 28,000 students from over 120 countries world-wide. Our vision is to achieve recognition, both nationally and internationally, as a successful and inclusive regional university proud of its diversity, committed to new modes of learning which focus on students and enhance their employability, and renowned for our contribution to social, cultural and economic development, especially through our research and scholarship. We have a strong track-record in widening participation and working with industry.

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