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.
