UK higher education continues to strive to live up to its globally respected reputation for rigorous academic standards, innovative research, historic institutions and high rankings, even as financial pressures bear down on the scale of what can be offered to students, and the sector’s scope to respond to a changing educational landscape. Reimagining curriculum and academic support and streamlining delivery can take the sector so far, but at some point the cracks begin to show.

For increasing numbers of students, as the resource envelope decreases it’s not clear that what was sold to them as a “higher education experience” can compensate for high costs, overcrowded facilities and harassed academic and support staff. The result is widespread health and wellbeing issues, stubborn awarding gaps that expose the limitations of a system that was designed for a much smaller and less diverse student body – and ultimately the erosion of opportunity as demand for higher education begins to slip.

While some may claim that the future of higher education lies in a great unbundling and fragmentation, we’d argue that reports of the death of the full-time three-year degree have been greatly exaggerated. With a new government, a renewed commitment to access and student success, within the framework of a regional regeneration agenda, there’s an opportunity to build a different vision for a full-time student experience, one that acknowledges that students are citizens too – they’re passengers, clients, patients, employees, voters, parents, clients, patients, employees, voters, parents, tenants, volunteers and taxpayers – each with their own distinct needs and future potential.

As Wonkhe’s unique student experience event returns for its seventh year, we’ll try to climb out of the doldrums over the student experience debate, asking the question – what would it take for the UK to offer the world’s best student experience? Bringing together policy makers and experts with sector leaders and managers, as well as student leaders and students’ union managers, we’ll get beyond trying to discern “the student interest” and work towards an ambitious, positive vision for students’ participation in higher education.

We’ll also spend some time interrogating some of the wicked problems associated with particular groups of students higher education: disabled students, postgraduate researchers; students who live locally (or less locally) to their campus; and the students whose work-based learning means that even the word “student”, let alone the policy surrounding them, can seem alien.

On the day we’ll round up key findings into the student experience from the past year, and launch exciting new findings on the student experience beyond the classroom. It’s the essential event for anyone working on policy and delivery for students.

Event information

The Secret Life of Students takes place at the Shaw Theatre, a short walk from Euston, Kings Cross and St Pancras train stations. All delegates will receive full joining instructions, including further venue and access details, a delegate list and guide to the event before the day.

Agenda

9.30 A new vision for the student experience

Jim Dickinson introduces the day with a tour of what we know about the student condition, and the kind of vision for student futures the evidence is pointing to.

10.15 Stress-testing the vision

Higher education sector leaders and student experience experts digest and discuss what needs to change to build a fresh, positive vision for students.

11.00 Break for refreshments and networking

11.30 Session tbc

12.15 The future that students want to see

Our panel of students’ union representatives share their insight about what students want from their experience and the kind of changes they are seeking to make their vision a reality.

1.00 Lunch

1.50 Deep-dive: disabled students

With increasing numbers of students arriving with or experiencing disability during their studies, we think through what it takes to make the student experience inclusive by design.

2.10 Deep dive: postgraduate researchers

We’ll identify the key pain points for PGRs, and what can their experience teach us about the kind of self-directed research-led student experiences that many aspire to weave throughout the higher education learning experience.

2.30 What is a world-class learning experience?

Active, authentic, inclusive, research-led, interdisciplinary, flexible…incorporating sustainability, intercultural awareness, digital fluency, global citizenship…and maybe even fun? There’s lots of aspirational chatter about the future of learning, but what happens when aspiration meets reality?

3.15 Break for refreshments and networking

3.45 What do you need to make a student city work?

Students’ experience is geographical: it happens in accommodation, on public transport, in their GP’s surgery, in work, and in the voting booth. Students and graduates bring economic and cultural benefits to their regions yet they are rarely considered as objects of policy. We’ll ask how universities can influence regional policymakers to attract and retain students and graduates.

4.30 From vision to reality – how higher education can prepare for the future

Realising a new vision means letting go of how things used to be and finding new ways of thinking, doing and delivering. Our closing panel will assess what the implications might be, what change could look like in practice – and what higher education needs to do right now to start bringing the future into being.

5.15 Close of event with drinks reception to follow