Higher Education & Skills Supplement
The right stuff: skills that work
The Leitch Review calls on universities to focus more on the needs of employers. It argues for higher levels of skills in order to provide a world-class workforce and recommends that the UK should have more than 40 per cent of the workforce qualified to level 4 or above (beyond A-level) in the National Qualifications Framework by 2020.
The response to this from the higher education sector has been somewhat guarded because student recruitment to courses remains the major driving force in the way that universities receive funding, as Simon Roodhouse explains; so, unsurprisingly, universities want to be able to design their own product.
The round table participants consider how higher education institutions can make themselves accessible to those with vocational qualifications (page 19) and discuss the types of qualification structures that will drive up skills in this country to match those of our global competitors.
Achieving balance Simon Roodhouse
Prophecies of doom change nothing Peter Kingston
All fired up by the training session? Emily Mann
Blinded by the numbers Sarah O’Connor
Interview with Sir Digby Jones Anushka Asthana
Truly unified funding slips further away Alison Wolf
Will the bottle rocket motivate a generation of scientists? Emma Lee-Potter
Round table: engaging with a skills agenda
