Sunday thoughts: Can the education sector become partners in the growth agenda?

(Yes, I know full well that Dewey wasn’t referring to GDP — but I like the quote and it’s more interesting than a picture of a graph and a classroom)

The fiscal event this Friday just gone contained very little directly aimed at the education sector. (In)famously, in the section entitled “getting people into work with the right skills”, it contained…nothing about improving skills.

This is not entirely a surprise. For all the journalistic mocking, and the fact it was clearly not called a Budget to avoid immediate OBR scrutiny, it was a fiscal event, not a full financial statement — which is to say it concerned itself with tax issues, not spending issues. Spending announcements (or cuts) will come at the proper Budget with accompanying OBR analysis promised by the Chancellor before the end of the financial year. In December, when we’re also promised a standalone OBR assessment, we might also have a Spending Review, of sorts, kicking off — though that is very much up in the air as of now (and will most likely depend on how sustained the markets’ panic is, and therefore the extent to which government needs to show some more economic discipline into the medium term).

But the fiscal event did make crystal clear what the Truss government is going to do generally, which is radical supply side reform to drive growth. Or as the Chancellor put it, “unleashing the power of the private sector”. Growth unleashed before breakfast, lunch and dinner, if required, as Michael Heseltine probably wouldn’t have said.

For better or worse, this is the narrative which the education sector needs to contend with this side of 2024. It might or might not work. But education has two choices. It can smart from the sidelines that it didn’t get a share of the billions spent on tax cuts. Or it can recognise that it can be a partner in this growth narrative, and put itself centre stage, even if government has not.

This will not be easy for everyone in education. Some are ideologically opposed to this government and disinclined to become partners with it. Some see it as impossible to focus on anything other than the need for short term funding increases for their institutions and students as the inflation and cost of living crises rage. Some think that given the planned approach is clearly illiterate and will change, there is no point in working on it. Some recognise that economics is one goal of education, but would prefer to talk about other purposes — social mobility, or addressing inequality, or advancing scholarship, or supporting early learning. I have great sympathy with all of these arguments. But education can either be left to be ignored for two years, and sit in a corner commiserating with itself. Or it can show it has a role.

Showing how education links to growth is easier for colleges and universities than for schools and early years providers. That’s probably why the Growth Plan published yesterday did actually have a significant set of announcements which can and should benefit HE in particular — and why there was (at least at section heading level) a recognition that improving skills in the labour market is vital. But every stage of the education system has an economic benefit, and I think it’s time to talk about it more.

And talking about it doesn’t mean just saying the government buzzwords in as positive a voice as can be summoned, and then segueing into “….but” and then discussing the regressive distributional impact of announcements, or saying in shocked tones how conservative it is, or calling for the standard set of asks around tuition fees, research spending, college funding, teacher pay grants and the like. The government is unconcerned about the first of these, proud of the second, and while they may have some sympathy with the third, they will simply ask the sector to prioritise within a spending envelope, in the same way that every other area of the public sector does.

So how, practically, might the education sector positively make a case for how it can be good faith partners in economic growth? I have a little list (he says, continuing his niche misquoting of 1990s Conservative politicians’ most famous sayings).

Many of these will apply more to one section of education than another — predominantly towards higher and further education. Not all of them will or can work or be taken forward together. Some of them may not appeal in the slightest. But the idea is to start to craft a series of policy initiatives and approaches which a forward looking education sector, or individual institutions, or local areas, might adopt.

• Talk about the economic benefits of the school curriculum. Some school subjects offer more potential into higher wage employment than others, and into high growth areas of the country — predominantly STEM subjects and those concerned with the digital economy. When Truss talks about everyone studying maths to 18, this is what she is thinking of. What does a curriculum offer at school and colleges which prioritises at least some element of maths and digital / computing skills for everyone 16–18 look like (including that which might be delivered digitally)? Should the sector be clearer eyed about the different options open to 16–18 year olds and that some lead to fewer choices later in life? When we offer different pathways at 16, should we talk about getting young people into the labour market efficiently as a priority outcome and not a second choice?
• Be honest about the benefits and costs of foreign students and visas. This is probably the easiest one to progress in that everyone in HE loves high paying international students. This narrative can evolve to explicitly recognise their benefit to universities — which everyone knows, of course , but’s its terribly uncouth to say— and the economic benefit to UK plc, which includes allowing some to stay after graduation with longer post study visas. The Truss government recognises immigration boosts growth, and this should be welcomed. But it also means having an honest debate about whether all foreign students contribute equally, in economic terms, and the responsibility universities have to manage the externalities of growth (in terms of accommodation and pressure on local facilities).
• Boost spin outs and support their scaling up. The Growth Plan announced literally half a billion pounds aimed at STEM and life sciences businesses, many of which will be part owned and spun out from universities. The ability of universities to grow new enterprises is proven and operates all over the country — but needs to become more central in the narrative. The power of ‘scale up’ companies is underappreciated and universities can boost those — even if it means letting a bit more IP go — and make it easier for businesses and investors to navigate the different parts of a university. And where universities are blocked from building new labs, business parks or other facilities because of planning constraints (hello, Cambridge) then they need to have louder arguments against NIMBYism — and against local Tory MPs if necessary.
• Seek more private investment. Colleges and universities have the freedom to borrow and to set up structures which attract private investment. A lot of the Growth Plan talked about freeing up rules on the supply side to allow external finance to find a home in high growth sectors and companies. Colleges and universities can be even more externally facing in seeking to attract this money, and tilt development offices away from philanthropy towards impact investment and more commercial funding streams. Universities in particular should be looking to set up appropriate legal and financial structures to receive funds from patient capital, or to create or join vehicles to attract investment in their own spin outs– like Northern Gritstone (set up by the Universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield) or Northern Accelerator (set up by Durham, Newcastle, Sunderland, Teesside and Northumbria).
• Develop business training and CPD. Government has long puzzled over why company investment in training is falling in the UK. Colleges in particular have done a good job in seeking to proactively reach out to local companies and show how they can benefit productivity through delivering training. But there is a wide variance in the amount of private training money colleges and universities receive. The university that delivers the most CPD in the country, for example, delivers more than four times as many days as the university that is as high as the 95th percentile! Colleges, universities and local authorities (especially combined authorities) should proactively take on the mantle of increasing private training at all levels, and in all ways— credentialled, non credentialled, executive education, bitesize learning, online provision, classroom lectures, bootcamps, apprenticeships, and everything in between— not simply waiting for Whitehall to devolve elements of AEB or loosen the levy rules.
• Think local, not just national. Increasingly, Mayoralties and Combined Authorities will be where the action lies. New investment zones are much prized by the government and will be hubs of activity. All education institutions — from early years up — can and should be focussed on local economic growth, in partnership with their local areas. However big the economic incentives for companies to relocate and grow in an area, what will make them stay and thrive is educational excellence and workforce development. School improvement should be part of the investment zone agenda. So should wrap around childcare. Colleges and universities should be hand in glove with these areas, providing high quality business training. A joint agreed local set of economic priorities should send signals for education institutions to train workers and conduct R+D in those areas. MATs can offer a huge anchor role in supporting education from 0–18. Much of this is happening in isolation already (especially in places such as Teesside, in Exeter and the broader South West, and across Greater Manchester). But education institutions should take the lead in these civic discussions and be unashamed that they are economic actors as much as businesses.
• Make the LLE happen — properly. It is so common for exciting ideas around skills training to get watered down to nothing at the last minute. Boris Johnson’s potentially transformative Level 3 guarantee is a flop, because it is so restrictive. The Government decides the courses that it thinks are worth doing, and limits the ways in which they can be accessed. The lifelong loan entitlement can be even more exciting — or even more of a flop. It needs its civil service authors to hold the line on making it as widely accessible and flexible as possible — and it needs the sector volubly cheering it on at all stages. Any danger of it being designed in a way which will lower costs but also lower impact should be resisted strongly, and the barriers identified that still exist need removing.
• Take over the high street. One of the most common findings in Public First polling is that people worry about their high streets in decline. Educational institutions, working with councils, should be in the first in the queue to take over vacant premises and grow their civic presence. Whether it’s Nottingham Trent University operating in Mansfield, or University of Gloucestershire moving into a defunct Debenhams, there are examples of this already. It doesn’t even need to be direct educational provision. Universities, colleges and schools (particularly MATs) can all take over the management of premises which they then offer to third parties — for extended services, wrap around childcare, adult learning, voluntary groups — you name it. This is levelling up and civic action in post industrial areas. But it’s also economic growth.
• Double down on existing prosperity. Long time readers (both of them) will be familiar with my wails of angst that the government hasn’t committed to the Oxbridge-Cambridge arc. There are hopeful mutterings again that this might change. More broadly, and more contentiously, there is a narrative to be made that says that as well as focussing on educational improvement in left behind areas, we should also focus on economic growth through supporting educational excellence — even if that’s in relatively prosperous cities. London, for example, contains two of the top ten universities in the world. It makes economic sense to support the research and business partnerships that will naturally flow to that hotbed of excellence (and also to support the housing and associated facilities that booming cities and their universities need) and not simply wish that it might be more covenient if global companies wanted to do R+D investment in more Red Wall areas and if highly productive workers wanted to live on new housing estates on brownfield sites miles from anywhere. London universities need to be more bullish about their natural advantages, as do the universities in the Arc, and those in large cities across the North. We accept the principle that we fund excellent research wherever it is found. We should apply the same research to supporting economic growth.
• Don’t dismiss every government plan, especially if it comes with money. Some in the education sector can show a tiresome trait of objecting to almost any initiative that focusses on an area which isn’t that which they would choose. Voxbridge is the latest example. Yes, it’s a stupid name. But the idea that we could create one or two large institutions, well funded, which would draw in external investment and drive growth, isn’t a stupid idea — especially if it offers things which other FE colleges can’t (maintenance support for students attending it, accommodation, professorial titles etc). The argument should be around where they get placed, and how it links in with the rest of the sector — and why there can’t be four or five or a dozen of them — rather than “please just fund us all better” which is both irrelevant (given that Voxbridge funds, if spread around, would be totally insignificant) and counterproductive, if objections are dismissed because Ministers have heard them endlessly before. It’s time for some new tunes.
• But call out government when it is failing on its own logic. A much more powerful argument, rather than “I wouldn’t start from here”, is “if you mean this, why are you undermining it through your own actions?”. The recent killing off of the National Science and Technology Council is perverse. Not increasing the ambition of the International Education Strategy when the main target around international students has been hit is an odd decision. DIT not putting universities and schools at the core of its internationalisation and export strategies is a missed opportunity. De-risking the entry of new providers by steadily increasing the bureaucracy to open a Free School or challenger university such that it becomes effectively impossible for all but the most dedicated is stultifying growth in the name of consistency.

This Government desperately wants growth. They have a number of policies and plans to do many of the things which might unlock it and which are natural fits with education— whether it’s promised planning reform, or industrial strategies, or commitments to a scientific superpower, or a focus on high growth areas of the economy such as life sciences and digital, or investment in education investment areas, or childcare reforms.

It’s easy to mock these, or say that there’s another approach which would be preferred. But this is the approach of government until 2024. Savvier educational institutions will resist the urge to carp, and instead seek to show how they can be partners in this agenda, take the government at their word, and show how their actions and government investment can work hand in hand.