Tag: sector

Skills England has a new way to talk about skills, and the sector needs to listen
Although on one level tertiary education policy has never been more concerned with skills, we’ve never really had a proper understanding of what skills actually are or how they fit together with either jobs or courses.

While – as a select and very well-informed group of attendees at The Festival of Higher Education were delighted to learn – there are any number of conceptualisations of what a skill (or a group of skills) might be, matching skills needs to jobs or to courses has never been easy to do in a reliable way.

To be a bit less abstract, if we want anyone to train our future workforce we need to know what we want them to be trained in. And, not only do we not know that because we can’t predict the future – we also don’t know that because we simply do not have the vocabulary or frameworks of understanding we need to pose the right questions. Employers and industries cannot talk to course providers and prospective employees about this stuff because each of these groups has spoken a different language.

Until today!

Into this ontological hellscape comes Skills England. The release of the UK Standard Skills Classification (UK-SSC) – alongside a wonderfully whizzy UK Skills Explorer tool – is, in a quiet way, the most significant thing to happen to the skills landscape in a generation: not least because, for the first time we are able to see it.

Before this, the skills landscape was, (at best) uneven. SOC codes helped us understand occupational requirements for jobs, SIC codes helped us understand the kind of work that goes on in particular industries, and HECoS codes gave us an understanding of what areas particular courses of study cover. All of this was useful, but none of it really linked together and – as you’ve probably spotted – none of it talked about actual skills.

So what is a “skill”? Well, it might be “a capability enabling the competent performance of a job-related activity”: an occupational skill. Or it could be a more generic competence, “a fundamental ability that contributes to the capability to carry out tasks associated with a specific job”: a core skill.

Skills England has identified 3,343 occupational skills (within 22 domains, 106 areas, and 606 groups). Occupational skills combine with knowledge (4,926 of these are defined) and core skills (just 13) to give someone the capability to do one or more of 21,963 identified occupational tasks.

So what?

The existence of these definitions should make it a lot easier to translate employer and industry needs, into opportunities that strategic government support, and an offer of courses that satisfies these needs.

Let’s give an example. Imagine the government decides that any future transition away from carbon-based power requires batteries and electrical components, and notices that we have quite a lot of the rare-earth metals and other minerals that we need to make these somewhere under the ground in the UK. We need to get them out, and we need to train the people that can do that. And we currently only have one school of mining with a little over a hundred students.

Because we can map the UK-SSC to Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, we can very easily run up a list of the key skills we need to train people in.

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That way, when we get to specifying what the new mining schools we are going to open actually need to teach, and we get to working with industry to decide what skills they need to do all this mining we have an agreed list. A starting point, sure, but one that saves a lot of time.

You will note that this is not just training people how to dig stuff up. There are research jobs, planning jobs, management jobs, and a fair few design jobs that need to be done. The bar chart aspect here gives us an indication as to how important each skill is to employers in this industry.

From specification to commission

So if we know what skills we need, how do we get people training in them? Or do we have people training in them already?

UK-SSC also maps to HECoS codes, which are the language we use in higher education to think about subject areas. So, to continue our example, let’s think about analysing mineral deposits – helping us figure out where to start digging holes.

“Analyse mineral deposits (S.0091)” is within the “researching & analysing” domain, and the “conducting scientific surveys and research” area. And we can use one of the mappings developed by Skills England to check out whether we have any courses in related subjects currently being offered in the UK higher education sector that might help.

I’m sorry to say I’ve been messing around with the data behind Discover Uni again. This maps individual courses to HECoS codes – so it lets us see how many courses are in subject areas linked to the skill we are interested in.

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Setting the filters appropriately and scrolling down we can see that we are not well-served with educational opportunities in this space. There are 19 subject areas associated with this skill, and only a few have courses that are being tagged with them. Notably there are 14 courses in environmental geosciences, 8 in geology, and 3 in archeological sciences. Nobody (not even the Camborne School of Mines!) is tagging themselves with the specific engineering-related disciplines of minerals processing or quarrying.

This neatly demonstrates that a linking vocabulary can only take us too far if subject coding (or any other kind of data collection) is done in a less-than-complete way. Using this very basic desk analysis we can see that there is probably a case for more specialist mining provision – and based on that we can suggest that there may be a cause for government investment. But it could equally demonstrate that tagging courses with HECoS code to power a course comparison website that hardly anyone looks at is not a way of generating a comprehensive picture of what is on offer.

And this is just a starting point. We can drill down from these occupational skills into job tasks, knowledge concepts, and core skills from here – all of which would help us specify what we need to train people to do in detail fine enough to design and run a suitable course for them.

So how has this been done?

If you are imagining a bunch of very diligent and smart people at Skills England and the University of Warwick taking a bunch of pre-existing information and pulling together this vocabulary you are probably most of the way there. Starting from six existing sources a combination of expert input and large language models refined and deduplicated entries within:
- A list of skills generated by (Skills England predecessor) the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education
- A list developed by the the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services
- A list from the National Careers Service
- A list from the Workforce Foresighting Hub in Innovate UK
- And two international comparators – the European Skills, Competences, Qualifications, and Occupations (ESCO) level 4 skills, and the (US based) O*NET detailed work activities.
A similar approach generated and tested all of the mappings and hierarchies that have been made available to download and play with.

And core skills?

As above there are just 13 of these, but these are assigned levels of proficiency in language that feels a lot like grade descriptors (note, these are not FHEQ levels but I bet somebody, somewhere, is thinking about a mapping).

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Each of these core skills also maps, to a greater or lesser extent, to each of the occupational skills – so our old friend “Analyse mineral deposits (S.0091)” requires level 4 “learning and investigating”, level 3 “planning and organising”, and level 2 “listening”.

You can’t help but think that forward-looking course leaders will be incorporating these definitions into their learning outcomes in the years to come. Proficiency levels may also be coming to the occupational skills definitions, and there’s even an idea of creating basic curricula for benchmarking and general use.

Skills for the future

There’s an old XKCD cartoon about standards that has become a meme – and it highlights that just because someone has combined everyone’s needs into a single standard there is nothing to say anyone will actually use that one rather than whatever language they’ve been speaking for years.

The UK-SSC attempts to avoid this in two ways. Firstly it maps to other vocabularies that people are already using in linked areas, and does so by design. And secondly it bears the imprinteur of the government, suggesting that at least one influential body will be using it every time it talks about skills.

And there’s another aspect that helps drive adoption. It will iterate – based on job vacancy data, workforce foresight, feedback from employers, even via public community forums (Stack Exchange, Discord!). And the links to other vocabularies will iterate too. The plan is that this will happen on a five year cycle, but with a first update next year.

Make no mistake, this is a major intervention in the skills landscape – and it has been done diligently and thoughtfully. If your job involves anything from designing courses to working with employers and local skills improvement plans, if you are a professional body, or working on subject benchmark statements, you need to get on board.
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November 28, 2025
Five challenges faced by the Welsh tertiary sector

Wales’ tertiary education and research sector is something we should all be proud of.

This is why I want to ensure it not only remains sustainable but continues to build on the achievements of the past five years.

These achievements include our progressive higher education funding policy, which has ensured financial barriers do not hold back talent and ambition. Welsh full-time undergraduates studying away from home outside London are entitled to £12,345 in maintenance support, with up to £8,100 in grants for those from the lowest income household.

Our financial package for part-time study has opened higher education to thousands more students since 2018.

Welsh universities led the UK for the proportion of their research whose impact is considered internationally excellent or world-leading in REF 2021.

The pandemic had a tremendous impact on every aspect of education, but the tide has started to turn. Further education has seen a revival in participation in recent years, helped by increased funding for colleges and the continuation of the Education Maintenance Grant and Welsh Government Learning Grant. Last year there was an 8.5 per cent increase in school leavers progressing to college and it is promising that early data suggests a similar increase this year.

A time of challenges

But I am mindful that there are significant challenges facing tertiary education, not just in Wales, but across the UK.

Yesterday in the Senedd I set out what I believe are now the five most pressing challenges for higher and further education in Wales in the coming years, and how I will use the remainder of the Senedd term to work with the sector to address them.

Increasing participation must continue to be a priority. Wales has a smaller proportion of young people attaining level 3 (A Levels and equivalent) than other UK nations. Our higher education entry rate at age 18 is also the lowest in the UK at 30 per cent, and although a larger proportion of students appear to enter HE in Wales in their twenties, we want more to see university as part of their future at 18.

The Welsh Government has a long-standing goal of 75 per cent of working age people being qualified to level 3 or higher by 2050. To achieve this, we need to expand access to a full range of vocational, technical, and academic pathways from age 16, which is why we are already reforming both 14-16 and post-16 qualifications.

And our tertiary education sector must be ready for a significant decline in the numbers of young people. The number of 16-year-olds in Wales is expected to fall by 17 per cent between 2027 and 2037. As a result, demand for university places across the UK could fall by almost 20 per cent in the 2030s.

Lifelong learning is already well ingrained in Welsh higher education. In 2022-23, 36 per cent of Welsh students studied part-time, compared with 23 per cent of English students, and 44 per cent of Welsh students were aged 25 and above compared with 36 per cent of English students. And during this Senedd term we have been able to increase the numbers of part-time learners in further education for the first time in a decade.

This is a platform to build from, but we will need to go further to enable adults to upskill around work and family commitments, at all levels, by providing more flexible, part-time and lifelong learning opportunities.

Unintended consequences

Another challenge relates to the unintended consequences of growing competition between providers. The competition in student recruitment is fundamental to the financial challenges now facing our universities and it will only intensify from 2030.

The removal of student number caps has permitted some UK universities to grow their domestic enrolments – often by lowering entry requirements – at the expense of the rest of the sector, including many of our excellent universities here in Wales. A future where higher-tariff providers continue to expand their enrolments at the rate of the past few years cannot be sustainable for the wider UK sector.

So I agree with the UK Government’s white paper that the future for tertiary education lies not in greater competition, but in increased collaboration. We have already worked with the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) to clarify the position on collaboration between universities. Medr is working to map subject provision so we can better understand which subjects may be at risk in the future from growing competition and changes in student preferences. Now we must look at how we enable closer collaboration in practice, and create the right incentives in funding and regulation for institutions to act more collaboratively.

I believe working in partnership will also be key to addressing the financial challenges facing not only institutions, but also students.

Our financial support for tertiary education and students is significant, totalling over £1.2bn this year alone. Despite taking the difficult decision to increase tuition fees in the past two years and again next year, education must remain affordable. This is why we provide generous student support and a more progressive repayment policy in Wales. We will therefore consider cost-of-living pressures for students and learners in the ongoing evaluation of the Diamond reforms. But the challenges facing the public finances are likely to last, and we need to consider how every penny spent to support institutions and students is delivering the greatest value possible.

Delivery

Finally, a thriving tertiary education sector must deliver for our economy. There are already excellent examples of this – such as the role of Cardiff University to support the compound semiconductor manufacturing hub, or the work of the North Wales Tertiary Alliance to power the new reactors at Wylfa with a skilled workforce. But we will need to change our approaches to vocational skills and research and innovation, both to respond to UK Government reforms, and to ensure that our economy has the skills and ideas to boost productivity and reduce inequality.

We have begun some of the work needed to meet these five challenges but must go further. In the coming weeks, we will publish an evidence paper, alongside a call for submissions from stakeholders, which will set out the challenges in much greater depth, and call on the sector to comment and advise on what more we need to understand about them.

I have also invited representatives from across the Welsh sector to join a new Ministerial Advisory Group, to consider these challenges in depth and in the spirit of social partnership.

Together, this work will provide a comprehensive evidence base upon which to deliver further reform, and help us to secure a thriving future for our tertiary education sector in Wales in these challenging times.

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November 26, 2025
Canadian sector hits back over plan to cancel study permits in crises

Immigration Minister Lena Diab told a House of Commons committee last week that the Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act (Bill C-12) would target “people who are going to be committing large-scale fraud”.

However, an opposition member, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, rejected the idea that the Liberal government needs sweeping powers to keep the immigration system functioning.

“That sounds like an authoritarian dictatorship to me,” Rempel Garner said.

Languages Canada Executive Director Gonzalo Peralta told The PIE News there was a need to define under what conditions Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) could cancel student visas.

“The term ‘public interest’ as grounds for cancelling visas or applications is vague and does not provide the assurances needed to ensure that legitimate students are not inadvertently impacted by the legislation,” Peralta said.

At the committee meeting, Rempel Garner argued: “It seems like you’re trying to give yourself and your department more powers to correct mistakes in the system that they could have made in screening out potential fraud to begin with.”

The term ‘public interest’ as grounds for cancelling visas or applications is vague and does not provide the assurances needed

In the wake of a large number of fraudulent study permit applications made by unscrupulous education agents, in 2023 the department implemented a system requiring applicants to present a verified letter of acceptance from a designated learning institution in order to obtain a study permit.

In many cases, the students said they were not aware that their agent was submitting fraudulent documents on their behalf.

MP Rempel Garner called out the minister for blaming students and other newcomers to Canada. “Why don’t you make the system work instead of punishing the victims of human trafficking,” she demanded at the meeting.

Larissa Bezo, president of the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE), told The PIE her group supports measures to uphold the integrity of the International Student Program. “However, we do not want to see international students who have been the victims of fraud unfairly punished,” Bezo said.

Peralta of Languages Canada condemned the Liberal government for failing to consult with the sector about this legislation and other policy changes.

“In the case of the proposed Bill C-12, a more comprehensive definition is needed of the specific conditions under which IRCC could cancel visas,” Peralta said.

Canadian immigration policy has hit the headlines over the past week after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government set out its intention to cut new international study permits by more than 50% in 2026-2028 – going further with enrolment caps that are already causing significant problems for the international education sector.

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November 7, 2025
WEEKEND READING: Axing IB funding in the state sector harms our ambitions for higher-level education and training

This blog was kindly authored by Richard Markham, Chief Executive Officer of the IB Schools and Colleges Association (IBSCA).

At International Baccalaureate (IB) schools and colleges, we have always been ambitious for our students. We know what they can achieve and support them to reach their goals. Through its broad curriculum – including Maths, English, a humanities, science, arts and language subject – the IB Diploma Programme (DP) provides stretch and challenge, developing a thirst for lifelong learning in our 16 to 19-year-olds. And, through extended essays, theory of knowledge and service in the community, it produces confident, well-rounded citizens who thrive in life and work. Year after year, we join our students and their families in celebrating their outstanding destinations at top universities and apprenticeships.

That is why it is deeply disappointing that the Government is axing the financial uplift for schools and colleges delivering the IB DP in the state sector, as soon as the next academic year.

Disappointing, but also surprising. By axing the large programme uplift – the top-up funding awarded to schools and colleges to reflect the additional teaching time required to deliver the IB DP – the Government risks tripping over its own hurdles. The post-16 white paper sets “objectives” for the 16-19 sector, with the first being that it “delivers world-leading provision that breaks down the barriers to opportunity”. The imminent final report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review will set out its recommendations to ensure that “every child” has “access to a broad range of subjects”.

On this front, it is vital that we keep the IB alive in the state sector. Far more extensive than A Levels, T Levels and now V Levels, the IB proves that creativity is not the preserve of the arts, nor logic the preserve of science. Both belong together in world-class education. It is a rigorous, aspirational study programme, offering all the advantages of a private school education, accessible to families who couldn’t dream of affording tuition. We should be expanding opportunities to an IB education, not shutting them down.

The second objective set for further education is that it supports the Government’s “ambition for two-thirds of young people to participate in higher-level learning” after they leave school. IB DP students in the UK are three times more likely to enrol in a top-20 higher education institution. Deep thinkers, broad skill sets – they excel at university-level study. DP students are 40% more likely to achieve a first-class or upper second-class honours degree. If the Government does not find a way through, the higher education sector will be poorer for it.

Moreover, UCAS data from the 2021/24 cycles gives us an indication of just how well the IB DP supports progression into courses that closely align with the UK’s Industrial Strategy priority sectors. The greatest proportion of DP students (4,900) accepted university offers in courses related to the life sciences sector, driven by medicine, dentistry and nursing. This was closely followed by professional and business services – with 3,365accepted offers for subjects like economics, law, management and politics – and upwards of 1,000 accepted offers in crucial science and engineering courses.

Evidently, this is a financial decision, not one taken in the best interests of our education and skills system. To dress it up in any other way does our educators a disservice. The large programme uplift given to IB DP schools is worth just £2.5 million a year. That is 0.0025 per cent of the Department for Education’s £100 billion annual budget. A drop in the ocean, and yet the programme delivers true value for money.

On Wednesday, MPs across the House united to fight for the future of the IB in Westminster Hall, calling for an urgent reversal of these cuts to provide certainty for school and college leaders, current and prospective IB students and their families, universities and employers. MPs questioned the very basis for the Department’s decision: “how can the Government can claim to want more students, particularly more girls, on STEM pathways while cutting funding for a qualification that demonstrably helps to achieve exactly that?”

Let us not forget, it was a Labour Government under Prime Minister Tony Blair that pledged an IB school in every local authority, but subsequent Prime Ministers have recognised the value and championed a baccalaureate-style education system. Support for the IB cuts across party lines and nation’s borders – reflecting the shared values of its global community of alumni, prospective students, parents, teachers, and policymakers who see its potential to raise ambition and foster international understanding. That cross-party appeal is no accident: many MPs, former IB teachers and alumni, know first-hand what the programme can do. They recognise its power to develop deeper thinkers, broader skill sets and more adaptable young people – qualities our economy and universities urgently need right now.

Find out more about the ‘Save the IB’ via the IBSCA website: www.ibsca.org.uk/save-the-ib-with-ibsca

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November 2, 2025
180 ransomware attacks plague education sector worldwide in 2025 through Q3
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Dive Brief:
- The education sector saw 180 ransomware attacks worldwide in the first three quarters of the year — a 6% year-over-year increase from the 170 attacks recorded in 2024, according to Comparitech data released Thursday. The findings include both confirmed and unconfirmed attacks.
- Most of the 2025 ransomware attacks — 95 out of 180 — were in the U.S. Some 35 of those 95 attacks have been confirmed by the targeted schools so far. The number of confirmed attacks is expected to climb in the coming months, as breaches are often reported some time after an attack.
- Still, the past two quarters marked the first dip in attacks since the start of 2024, which could indicate “a more positive outlook for the education sector,” according to the cybersecurity and online privacy product review website.
Dive Insight:

The ransom demand across all 180 attacks globally averaged $444,400.

“This definitely isn’t the time to get complacent,” said Rebecca Moody, head of data research at Comparitech, in an email to K-12 Dive on Thursday. “These attacks, and their subsequent breaches, remain a dominant threat. That’s why it’s imperative schools and colleges of all sizes take key steps to try and mitigate their risks.”

Many of the confirmed attacks resulted in systems going offline, leading to network disruptions and classes being cancelled for days or weeks. The incidents led to stolen data more often than not, with an average of 2.6 terabytes worth of data stolen per attack.

In South Carolina’s Cherokee County School District, for example, a confirmed March attack affected systems for around a week and resulted in 624 gigabytes of data allegedly stolen. Last month, the school district reported that data from 46,000 people was impacted.

A 2023 Comparitech report estimated the cost of ransomware attacks on K-12 and higher education institutions globally at over $53 billion in downtime between 2018 and mid-September 2023.

To prevent ransomware attacks, Moody said schools should keep systems up to date, patch vulnerabilities as soon as they’re flagged, and conduct regular cybersecurity training for employees.

“A worst-case scenario plan should also be in place because, as gangs continue to exploit vulnerabilities via third parties, even schools with the best cybersecurity standards can be left vulnerable if the third parties they’re working with are targeted,” said Moody.

Likewise, cybersecurity experts suggest that school districts implement phishing tests, establish a backup network and tap into state and federal support such as cybersecurity advisors to prevent and respond to ransomware attacks.

Phishing, which often seeks to trick staff into revealing login credentials, can target high-profile employees more often than others, such as those working in human resources, business, the superintendency and other administrative roles with access to sensitive data.
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October 30, 2025
The higher education sector needs an honest broker to support structural change

Of all the current headwinds faced by the higher education sector, one of the most challenging is a lack of expertise and experience in the area of structural change.

In an environment where radical collaboration and merger are increasingly seen – rightly or wrongly – as a solution to the sector’s financial challenges, the expertise needed to broker and execute a successful merger or other collaboration seems to be patchy.

As, arguably, are the somewhat different competences required to steward the longer term strategic integration of two or more distinct institutions, each with their own teaching and research portfolios and cultures. The answer to the question “who has done this before?” can only be answered in the affirmative by a handful of people.

This issue was acknowledged in Mills & Reeve’s joint report with Wonkhe Connect More with the following insight from a one of the heads of institution we interviewed:

We all have a skills matrix for boards and for courts and for councils. I think, increasingly, that needs to reflect people who’ve got some expertise and some background in this space…I don’t think there are many vice chancellors who would necessarily have the skills, the knowledge, and the background. Really, this is new territory, potentially, for us, it’s new turf.

Of course, it wasn’t always thus. One of the ironies of the current dearth of experience is that large numbers of providers are themselves the product of historic mergers and collaborations. Taking the long view, the history of many providers is a complex genealogy, a narrative of mergers past and more recent.

In part, the steady decline in institutional experience of these things was the natural result of a relatively benign financial environment. It’s easy to forget in the current climate but the period of low inflation and cheap borrowing meant that, at an institutional level, there was little impetus to challenge the operating model and, of course, the introduction of a marketised funding model meant that competition, rather than collaboration, was very much the order of the day.

That marketised model was also accompanied by a marked shift in approach from the regulator. While HEFCE adopted a relatively low-key approach to mergers and collaboration – generally leaving the impetus to come together to institutions themselves – it did publish guidance on mergers and had a collaboration and restructuring fund to assist institutions to explore and implement structural change.

Crucially, HEFCE was widely accepted to be a neutral broker who would help facilitate institutions coming together – and it had the funding to help smooth the path. By contrast, OfS, in its response to a question from the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee, made it clear that it does not consider itself to have “the remit, powers or funding to intervene to prevent closure or to facilitate mergers or acquisitions.”

Skills gap

Where, then, does that leave providers? Typically, there is a reliance on the institution’s executive team, in particular, the vice chancellor, to steer the merger. But most higher education executives are not from the business world with experience in mergers and to a significant degree they have a conflict of interest. There is also a need to continue with their day jobs and manage business as usual in case the merger doesn’t happen.

The next most obvious port of call is to look for expertise among their own governing bodies, and, specifically, their external members. After all, one of the main motivations of having lay external members is to draw upon their expertise and to fill gaps which (understandably enough) exist within the skill sets of senior management teams and the institution more widely.

The problem, however, is that merger and radical collaboration require a very particular set of skills. It’s very easy for universities to get starry-eyed about a governor just because they happen to be an investment banker, an accountant, or have experience of public sector mergers in the NHS, for example. But the skills required in a university merger or a complex debt restructuring are very specific and even a governing body which is well-stocked with members from across different professional services and backgrounds cannot assume that its trustees have the requisite expertise to drive forward a merger of two institutions.

Of course, an institution can buy in a certain level of expertise. But what perhaps can’t always be replicated by professional advice are the experience and war stories of those who have lived and breathed mergers and collaborations from the inside – particularly from the education and adjacent sectors. In Mills & Reeve’s joint report with KPMG UK – Radical collaboration: a playbook – we drew out some of those lived experiences in the form of case studies. However, written case studies need to be seasoned with real-life personal experience. What is really needed when scoping a potential merger or other kind of radical collaboration is access to a “hive mind” of critical friends.

An HE Commissioner model

Other sectors have taken a strategic approach to developing this expertise. The Further Education Commissioner is the most obvious parallel. Between 2015 and 2019 the FE sector saw 57 mergers, three federations, three joint FE and HE institutions and 23 academy conversions. If most of UK higher education no longer has institutional memory of mergers, FE has it in bucket loads.

The FE Commissioner and their team offer a range of services to FE colleges – ranging from informal chats and financial health checks, through to more formal invention assessments. Their team – a mix of former leaders and finance professionals from within the sector – have genuinely seen and done it all before. Higher education deserves the same deep pool of knowledge to draw on, especially if the worst case scenario of institutional insolvency and/or disorderly market exit is to be avoided.

For this to work successfully in HE there would need to be some level of funding and a decision as to whether a commissioner’s role might sit within DfE or OfS. Our sense – particularly given the size and complexity of universities and the involvement of key stakeholders such as banks and private placement bondholders – is that there will still be a large role played by private sector consultants, lawyers, and accountants. However, there is room for a more collegiate level of engagement from DfE and OfS than arguably exists at present.

As well as pooling expertise on how to collaborate, placing an HE commissioner role on a formal footing might also allow it to broker conversations between providers seeking to work together more closely – something which, in our experience, is done very hesitantly at present, both because of the fear of breaching competition rules and, more generally, because every potential collaboration partner is, in a very real sense, also a competitor.

What can’t be underestimated is how urgently this function is needed. Providers are capable of doing this alone, as recent examples such as the Anglia Ruskin/Writtle and St George’s/City mergers testify. However, how much better for the long-term future of the sector it would surely be if providers had ready access to some critical friends and some “protected” spaces to have conversations about how best to achieve and implement forms of radical collaboration.

This article is published in association with Mills & Reeve.

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October 14, 2025
The PM’s announcement on higher level participation is a win for the HE sector

You could read “abolishing the 50 per cent participation target” as a vote of no-confidence in higher education, a knee-jerk appeal to culturally conservative working-class voters. But that would be both a political/tactical mistake and a fundamental misreading of the policy landscape.

To recap: in his leader’s speech to Labour Party Conference on Tuesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that two thirds of people under 25 should participate in higher level learning, whether in the form of academic, technical, or work-based training, with at least ten per cent pursuing technical education or apprenticeships by 2040.

So let’s start by acknowledging, as DK does elsewhere on the site, that the 50 per cent participation target has a totemic status in public discourse about higher education that far outweighs its contemporary relevance. And, further, that party conference speeches are a time for broad strokes and vibes-based narrativising for the party faithful, and soundbites for the small segment of the public that is paying attention, not for detailed policy discussions.

An analysis of Starmer’s speech on Labour List suggests, for example, that the new target signals a decisive break with New Labour, something that most younger voters, including many in the post-compulsory education sector, don’t give the proverbial crap about.

True North

What this announcement does is, finally, give the sector something positive to rally around. Universities UK advocated nearly exactly this target in its blueprint for the new government, almost exactly a year ago, suggesting that there should be a target of 70 per cent participation in tertiary education at level four and above by 2040. Setting aside the 3.333 percentage point difference, that’s a win, and a clear vote of confidence in the post-compulsory sector.

Higher education is slowly recovering from its long-standing case of main character syndrome. Anyone reading the policy runes knows that the direction of travel is towards building a mixed tertiary economy, informed if not actively driven by skills needs data. That approach tallies with broader questions about the costs and financing of dominant models of (residential, full time) higher education, the capacity of the economy to absorb successive cohorts of graduates in ways that meet their expectations, and the problematic political implications of creating a hollowed out labour market in which it it is ever-more difficult to be economically or culturally secure without a degree.

The difference between the last government and this one is that it’s trying to find a way to critique the equity and sustainability of all this without suggesting that higher education itself is somehow culturally suspect, or some kind of economic Ponzi scheme. Many in the sector have at times in recent years raged at the notion that in order to promote technical and work-based education options you have to attack “university” education. Clearly not only are both important but they are often pretty much the same exact thing.

What has been missing hitherto, though, is any kind of clear sense from government about what it thinks the solution is. There have been signals about greater coordination, clarification of the roles of different kinds of institution, and some recent signals around the desirability of “specialisation” – and there’s been some hard knocks for higher education providers on funding. None of it adds up to much, with policy detail promised in the forthcoming post-16 education and skills white paper.

Answers on a postcard

But now, the essay question is clear: what will it take to deliver two-thirds higher level learning on that scale?

And to answer that question, you need to look at both supply and demand. On the supply side, there’s indications that the market alone will struggle to deliver the diversity of offer that might be required, particularly where provision is untested, expensive, and risky. Coordination and collaboration could help to address some of those issues by creating scale and pooling risk, and in some areas of the country, or industries, there may be an appetite to start to tackle those challenges spontaneously. However, to achieve a meaningful step change, policy intervention may be required to give providers confidence that developing new provision is not going to ultimately damage their own sustainability.

But it is on the demand side that the challenge really lies – and it’s worth noting that with nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training, the model in which exam results at age 16 or 18 determine your whole future is, objectively, whack. But you can offer all the tantalising innovative learning opportunities you want, if people feel they can’t afford it, or don’t have the time or energy to invest, or can’t see an outcome, or just don’t think it’ll be that interesting, or have to stop working to access it, they just won’t come. Far more thought has to be given to what might motivate young people to take up education and training opportunities, and the right kind of targeted funding put in place to make that real.

The other big existential question is scaling work-based education opportunities. Lots of young people are interested in apprenticeships, and lots of higher education providers are keen to offer them; the challenge is about employers being able to accommodate them. It might be about looking to existing practice in teacher education or health education, or about reimagining how work-based learning should be configured and funded, but it’s going to take, probably, industry-specific workforce strategies that are simultaneously very robust on the education and skills needs while being somewhat agnostic on the delivery mechanism. There may need to be a gentle loosening of the conditions on which something is designated an apprenticeship.

The point is, whatever the optics around “50 per cent participation” this moment should be an invigorating one, causing the sector’s finest minds to focus on what the answer to the question is. This is a sector that has always been in the business of changing lives. Now it’s time to show it can change how it thinks about how to do that.

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October 1, 2025
EaseMyTrip enters sector with almost 50% stake in Planet Education

As part of its diversification drive, the travel platform has formed a strategic alliance with Planet Education to forge its path into international study tourism.

According to an exchange filing by EaseMyTrip last year, the company acquired its stake in the study-abroad organisation by purchasing shares from existing shareholders through the issuance of fully paid-up equity shares of EaseMyTrip worth INR 39.20 crore (approximately £3.5 million).

While EaseMyTrip, a publicly listed company on India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), will provide Planet Education with access to its customer base and technological capabilities, the travel platform is expected to gain from Planet Education’s 25 years of experience in the international education sector, including expertise in counselling, university placements, and visa assistance.

Leveraging Planet Education’s expertise, we aim to simplify the process of visas and documentation for students, making it hassle-free
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“Every year, lakhs of students pursue higher education in countries like the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, and Ireland. Our acquisition in Planet Education is a strategic step to enter the burgeoning international study tourism, allowing us to offer a seamless, end-to-end experience that integrates both education and travel services for our customers,” said Nishant Pitti, CEO & co-founder, EaseMyTrip.

“Leveraging Planet Education’s expertise, we aim to simplify the process of visas and documentation for students, making it hassle-free. We see immense potential in Planet Education’s model and are excited to combine our tech-driven capabilities with their expertise to create enhanced value for our valued customers.”

“[The] proposed alliance would be a perfect synergy for expansion and growth of businesses of both the entities whereby wide network of Planet Education in form of its presence across the country and EaseMyTrip’s presence through its online platform for travel and tourism will be facilitating each other’s line of business and thereby achieving growth in the businesses,” stated Sanket Shah, founder, Planet Education.

Meanwhile, Planet Education founder Sanket Shah said the partnership marked “a perfect synergy for expansion” and the growth of both businesses.

While this marks the first investment by an Indian travel platform in an international education provider, several travel companies over the years have introduced services aimed at India’s growing outbound student population, which is expected to reach 2.5 million by 2030.

Just last year, BookMyForex, a subsidiary of another leading travel platform MakeMyTrip, launched a promotional campaign offering cashback on forex cards and tuition fee transfers for students planning to study abroad.

Moreover, in 2023, MakeMyTrip rolled out a series of student-focused collaborations, teaming up with airlines to provide additional baggage allowances and special fares, with banks to extend exclusive credit card discounts on bookings, and with travel accessory brands to offer concessions.

“We are delighted that this integrated offering will lead to economy and convenience for the student cohort travelling abroad, especially to destinations such as the USA, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand,” stated Saujanya Shrivastava, COO, Flights, Holidays, and Gulf Cooperation Council, MakeMyTrip.

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August 21, 2025
Peak bodies criticise red tape in sector – Campus Review

Peak higher education bodies have warned a Senate inquiry against counterproductive over-regulation and towards proper university funding ahead of the government’s productivity roundtable.

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August 13, 2025
What should the higher education sector do about AI fatigue?

Raise the topic of AI in education for discussion these days and you can feel the collective groan in the room.

Sometimes I even hear it. We’re tired, I get it. Many students are too. But if we don’t keep working creatively to address the disruption to education posed by AI – if we just wait and see how it plays out – it will be too late.

AI fatigue is many things

There are a few factors at play, from an AI literacy divide, to simply talking past each other.

AI literacy is nearly unmanageable. The complexity of AI in education, exacerbated by the pace of technological change, makes AI “literacy” very difficult to define, let alone attain. Educators represent a wide range of experience levels and conceptual frames, as well as differing opinions on the power, quality, opportunity, and risk of generative AI.

One person will see AI as a radical first step in an intelligence revolution; the next will dismiss it as “mostly rubbish” and minimise the value discussing it at all. And, as far as I have found, there is no leading definition of AI literacy to date. Some people don’t even like the term literacy.

Our different conceptual frames compete with each other. Many disciplines and conceptual orientations are trying to talk together, each with their own assumptions and incentives. In any given space, we have the collision of expert with novice, entrepreneur with critic, sceptic with optimist, reductionist with holist… and the list goes on.

We tend to silo and specialise. Because it is difficult to become comprehensively literate in generative AI (and its related issues), many adopt a narrow focus and stick with that: assessment design, academic integrity, authorship, cognitive offloading, energy consumption, bias, labour ethics, and others. Meetings take on the character of debates. At the very least, discussions of AI are time-consuming, as each focus seems to need airing every day.

We feel grief for what we may be losing: human authorship, agency, status, and a whole range of normative relational behaviours. A colleague recently told me how sad she feels marking student work. Authorship, for example, is losing coherence as a category or shared value, which can be surreal and dispiriting for both writers and readers. AI’s disruption brings a deeply challenging emotional experience that’s rarely discussed.

We are under-resourced. Institutions have been slow to roll out policy, form working groups, provide training, or fund staff time to research, prepare, plan, and design responses. It’s a daunting task to just keep up with, let alone get ahead of, Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, the burden is largely borne by individuals.

The AI elephant in the room

Much of the sector suffers from the wishful thinking that AI is “mostly rubbish”, not likely to change things much, or simply an annoyance. Many educators haven’t thought through how AI technologies may lead our societies and our education systems to change radically and quickly, and that these changes may impact the psychology of learning and teaching, not to mention the entire infrastructure of education. We talk past each other.

Silicon Valley is openly pursuing artificial general intelligence (AGI), or something like that. Imagine a ChatGPT that can do your job, my job, and a big piece of the knowledge-work jobs recent graduates may hope to enter. Some insiders think this could arrive by 2027.

A few weeks ago, Dario Amodai, CEO of AI company Anthropic, wrote his prediction that 50 per cent of entry-level office jobs could vanish within the next couple of years, and that unemployment overall could hit 20 per cent. This could be mostly hype or confirmation bias among the tech elite. But IBM, Klarna, and Duolingo have already cited AI-linked efficiencies in recent layoffs.

Whether these changes take two years, or five, or even ten, it’s on the radar. So, let’s pause and imagine it. What happens to a generation of young people who perceive increasing job scarcity, and options and social purpose?

Set aside, for now, what this means for cities, mental health, or the social fabric. What does it mean for higher education – especially if a university degree no longer holds the value it once promised? How should HE respond?

Responding humanely

I propose we respond with compassion, humanity… and something like a plan. What does this look like? Let me suggest a few possibilities.

The sector works together. Imagine this: a consortium of institutions gathers together a resource base and discussion space (not social media) for AI in education. It respects diversity of positions and conceptual frames but also aims for a coherent and pragmatic working ethos that helps institutions and individuals make decisions. It drafts a change management plan for the sector, embracing adaptive management to create frameworks to support institutions to respond quickly, intelligently, flexibly, and humanely to the instability. It won’t resolve all the mess into a coherent solution, but it could provide a more stable framework for change. And lift the burden on thousands of us who feel we are reinventing the wheel every day.

Institutions take action. Leading institutions embrace big discussions around the future of society, work, and education. They show a staunch willingness to face the risks and opportunities ahead, they devote resources to the project, and they take actions that support both staff and students to navigate change thoughtfully.

Individuals and small groups are empowered to respond creatively. Supported by the sector and their HEIs, they collaborate to keep each other motivated, check each other on the hype, and find creative new avenues for teaching and learning. We solve problems for today while holding space for the messy discussions, speculate on future developments, and experiment with education in a changing world.

So sector leaders, please help us find some degree of convergence or coherence; institutions, please take action to resource and support your staff and students; and individuals, let’s work together to do something good.

With leadership, action, and creative collaboration, we may just find the time and energy to build new language and vision for the strange landscape we have entered, to experiment safely with new models of knowledge creation and authorship, and to discover new capacities for self-knowledge and human value.

So groan, yes – I groan with you. And breathe – I’ll go along with that too. And then, let’s see what we can build.

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July 27, 2025