1. Future direction of UK Higher Educationby
Dr Elizabeth Lawrence
UCU Immediate Past President

2. Introduction – themes of talk
Academic freedom and academic standards
Privatisation, metrics and the White Paper
Students and demand for higher education
Staff, precarious employment, workloads, roles and careers

3. Academic freedom and academic standards
Academic freedom necessary to uphold academic standards
Dangers of commercial pressures on the sector
The Prevent Agenda – the duties both to safeguard students and to maintain academic freedom
Do some subject areas become too difficult to teach and research?
Is the Government using the Prevent agenda to create a narrow centre-right consensus?
Do mud-slinging political campaigns threaten academic freedom within our universities?

4. Privatisation, metrics and the White Paper
Considerable privatisation already, changed basis of student funding, tuition fees, outsourcing
Growth of private for-profit providers of Higher Education
Metrics, league tables and goal displacement
Proxy metrics
White Paper proposes easier entrance to the sector and easier exit

5. The White Paper and degrees
What is a degree education?
An investment by students and parents in their employability and lifetime earning?
A benefit to society
The provision of an educated electorate to enhance democracy
The provision for society of an educated workforce, staffing many socially useful professions and occupations

6. What might education in private for profit providers look like?
Will there be academic freedom clauses in staff contract, charters or statutes?
What will happen to equality policies?
How will pay and conditions of staff be determined? Will there be recognised unions and collective bargaining?
What will students receive beyond education and assessment? How much academic and pastoral support?

7. Students and demand for higher education
Why has demand for higher education not fallen?
Will high tuition fees in UK lead to more students studying abroad?
Loss of overseas students because of migration controls
How will cuts in further education impact on access to universities?
How many graduates does the Conservative Government want?

8. Staff, precarious employment, workloads, roles and careers
What types of jobs will be offered by universities in future?
The growth of precarious employment and deskilling – who writes the learning materials?
Does the lecturer do both research and teaching? ‘Academic fracking’
How much academic freedom and autonomy?
Is university lecturing a long-term career? Pressures on workloads, job security, pay and pensions