JISC

UK higher education is a world-class brand, encapsulating research and qualitative excellence. In his 11 September speech to the Universities UK annual conference, Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) John Denham outlined ways in which it will need “ambition and vision” in order to attain and maintain its global position. He also announced that he is asking JISC Chair Sir Ron Cooke for his advice on how the UK’s global leadership in education and ICT can be exploited further.

Citing the Open University as a proven example of Britain’s ability to lead the world in terms of innovative learning methods that help widen social participation, Mr Denham believes that merely ‘dumping’ more course materials onto the internet is not the answer. He deems the online development of students’ core critical, creative and multi-disciplinary skills to be of paramount importance, as this will enable students to optimize the traditional and online resources available to them.

‘It will help us take the excellence of British higher education to other parts of the globe.’

Despite the "tight funding climate", president of Universities UK Professor Rick Trainor commented in the Guardian that government spend in the sector, which brings such tangible returns for society and the economy, should increase from 1.3% of GDP. This figure currently hovers beneath most of the UK’s major competitors.

Higher education is expanding and evolving, with many preferring distance learning to the traditional campus-based approach. It is the university system that ‘grasps and responds to this fact that will maintain its world class status over the years and decades ahead’, which is why Mr Denham is looking to Sir Ron Cooke, Chair of JISC, to provide advice and a tangible framework as to how British universities can take this technological lead.

Read the full speech

View the Guardian report on the speech which also mentions Sir Ron’s wider work
  DIUS higher education blog

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