In 2008, the then Secretary of State at DIUS John Denham announced his University Challenge which aimed to plug the ‘cold spots’ of HE provision in England. The idea was to create HE ‘centres’ in partnership rather than brand new universities, although the media widely reported it as “Croydon planning to join Cambridge as a university town” etc.
The idea has gained renewed interest – David Willetts directed HEFCE to revisit the issue earlier in the year, although there is no big high-profile government push this time. Some of the 2008 literature makes interesting reading today – the University Challenge paper from DIUS is worth revisiting – and this vintage HEFCE Board paper that doesn’t do much to hide that by this stage, civil servants were getting quite bored of government making half-baked announcements that HEFCE needed to untangle, ‘reframe’ and implement.
Whilst some universities centres did indeed open following Denham’s 2008 challenge, wider trends and demographics have not substantially changed. London is still an HE hot spot – both in provision and participation. The east of England, South West, North East, Cumbria remain distinctly cold – as does the entire border between England and Wales.
HEFCE in fact has a series of interesting maps now all in one place – provision by location, uptake of higher education, the link between employment and HE qualifications, graduate mobility and employment and are well worth looking at. It also has some lovely interactive maps such as this one showing Provision of HE across England for entrants 2012-13:
The work published today does not come with any extra funding, it is instead meant to inform institutional decision-making and give a wider strategic context to anyone thinking about creating partnerships in the hope they may focus their attention on the areas that need HE most. The graduate mobility maps should also give rise to some important conversations in LEPS, town halls and universities and elsewhere about why so many local graduates are going back home to find work rather than sticking around.
So no new spending, but lots of ammunition for current or future Governments if they want to think about a big new initiative in the style of University Challenge. And plenty of interesting maps to keep the wonks happy for now.
