To Birkbeck College for an evening of analysis about what the future holds for higher education.

Perhaps most interesting was the suggestion that universities could take a leaf out of the schools sector’s book and improve the cultural content of their degree curricula.

Devisers of schools’ curricula, it seems, are paying more attention to ensuring that pupils leave school as well-rounded human beings than those responsible for what is learned in universities.

As a result, the schoolchildren of tomorrow may be exposed a broader education - teaching them the value of “character” and “resilience” (one of the few things Labour’s Tristram Hunt and Conservative education secretary Nicky Morgan were agreed upon during the 2015 election campaign).

The occasion was a memorial lecture for respected academic Dr Ruth Thompson - jointly sponsored by Birkbeck and the highly respected Higher Education Policy Institute thinktank - and took the form of a question and answer session between Birkbeck’s Professor Claire Callender and Baroness Alison Wolf, from Kings College London.

‘Culture’ in the curriculum

Actually, analysis may be too highfalutin a term to use for some of the discussion. At one stage, Professor Callender, in the role of interviewer, asked whether today’s policy announcements had “lost sight of the purpose of higher education”. The answer from Baroness Wolf was a simple one word: “yes”.

Both the seminal Robbins and Dearing reports into higher education had devoted an entire chapter to this debate, whereas recent White Papers and the Browne report, which led to the current fees system, made no mention of it.

It is assumed nowadays, argued Baroness Wolf, that higher education was there to help lead to a flourishing economy. Students were expected to judge whether they were getting “value for money” from their courses (which meant whether they were earning extra bangs for their bucks - my expression not theirs! - on completing their courses).

This was in stark contrast to primary and secondary schools, said Professor Callender, in which “culture” has a more prominent role in the curriculum.

It would seem odd, then, if this interpretation is correct, for schools to be moving away from the “exam factory” model only for such a restrictive model to be imposed when teenagers move on to university.

All in all, then, a depressing evening from many perspectives - but if it is true that the schools sector is showing more concern about promoting cultural education which will, in the words of the CBI no less, produce more “rounded and grounded” citizens of tomorrow, perhaps there’s a message that it could impart to those who have the future of higher education as their remit.

Lining their own pockets 

Reflecting on my last column, decrying the suspended primary school executive who earned £366,000 a year and the Cambridge University vice-chancellor embarking on a robust defence of his measly £365,000 a year (by comparison), it seems that inflated salaries are a growing problem in the education sector - with yet more evicence published by Tes this week.

Time, it would seem, for the Department for Education to crack the whip a little bit harder in scrutinising academy accounts. How about withdrawing multi-academy status for those who seem to be creaming off too much public money to line their own pockets? How about encouraging more local authorities into adopting MAT-status - so there is an element of democratic accountability in the process? Come to think of it, why not get local authorities to run more schools? Now there’s a thought.

Richard Garner was education editor of The Independent for 12 years, and previously news editor of Tes. He has been writing about education for more than three decades

To read more columns by Richard, view his back catalogue

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