Degree of Doubt
Prof Chris Millward joins Roger and me to discuss whether the government is right to expect more vocational oriented degrees and adds some better dieas about how to improve further education.
How valuable is higher education? If your degree isn’t one that’s going to help you get a good job, is it worth the huge debts you’ll be saddled with when you leave? The government wants to phase out degrees that don’t improve students’ “earning potential” - so goodbye gender studies or surf science? And what about art and literature, history and pure sciences? Chris Millward, professor of practice in education policy at Birmingham University walks Phil and Roger through what’s valuable and what isn’t in higher education.
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Prof Chris Millward
Professor of Practice in Education Policy, University of Birmingham
As a Professor of Practice in Education Policy at the University of Birmingham, Chris is focused on understanding issues of equity and inclusion through the education system and how different patterns of post-compulsory education, learning and skills development influence local and national prosperity. From 2018-21, he was the first Director for Fair Access and Participation at England’s higher education regulator, the Office for Students. He was also Director of Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England, in where he developed the UK’s first Teaching Excellence Framework. Prior to that, from 2002-06, Chris was Head of Research Programmes at the Arts and Humanities Research Board, which became the UK’s first Research Council in the subject area in 2005.
