The confirmation of Robert Halfon’s appointment as higher education minister in the Westminster government brings in a politician who “appears to have an interest in the detail of policy”, who sees employability as the purpose of university and who will ramp up his crusade on degree apprenticeships.
Mr Halfon, who will oversee English universities as minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education, is a former chair of the House of Commons education select committee. In 2017, he told Times Higher Education he wanted to see 50 per cent of those going into higher education taking degree apprenticeships and called for “a radical look at what university is for”, so funding incentivises the study of subjects that address the UK’s “skills deficits”.
