‘Skills’ still a ‘dirty word’ in too many universities, says MP

Some university lecturers still see skills as a “dirty word”, according to a new Labour MP, who said that institutions needed to better focus on creating “rounded” individuals.

Peter Swallow, who unexpectedly became the first Labour MP for Bracknell in the party’s landslide victory in the July general election, said some in the sector were still holding on to a “perfect ideal” that a university education has nothing to do with future employment.

The classicist, who was a postdoctoral researcher at Durham University prior to the poll, said there was also a need to move on from the view that skills training was merely about preparing someone to become a “cog in the economic machine”.

“It is frankly still the case that in too many universities, too many university lecturers think skills is a dirty word and we have to get better at embedding skills-based education into the curriculum,” Dr Swallow told a fringe event at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.

“Frankly, we need to get our university teachers better at teaching,” he added. “We have to look at the university as being for growing a person as a person. That means making sure they are equipped with both the knowledge and skills to move into a role but also ways of learning and being prepared for the next stage in life as a more rounded individual.”

Labour has signalled its intention to focus on skills training in government with the creation of a new body, Skills England, and a commitment to expand the apprenticeship levy to become a wider “growth and skills levy”, creating potential opportunities for universities. 

Many have also highlighted how universities can help Labour become a “mission-led” government – focused on clean energy, growth, the NHS, equality of opportunity and crime – and Mr Swallow said it was a “cliché” that academia is only good at long-term solutions.

“I think that is quite wrong about universities,” he said. “They are already putting a lot of stuff into practice that this government needs to pay attention to.”

Nic Beech, vice-chancellor of the University of Salford, told the event hosted by the Purpose Coalition that academics were used to a culture of risk-taking and experimentation, pointing out that the basis of research was “always moving into the area of the unknown”.

“The challenge is when you lift that to a systemic or institutional level, there are all sorts of forces that see that as problematic,” Professor Beech added.

“That’s why I think having longer-term missions that we don’t expect to have quick fixes and having an orientation to them that combines learning, skills and research and accepts that is a culture change, that is the way we can go forward.

“For universities the challenge is to allow people to be honest and open about that and see those as really positive things.”

Professor Beech said Salford was in the process of reorganising its academic staff around themes instead of just schools as the way institutions recruit and promote academics “massively reinforces an individualised way of thinking”.

“All of the processes and practices that will hit these sorts of missions – and broader ones – are team problems,” he said.

“So, we need to reform the way we think about how we recruit people and how we promote them.

“We have schools, but the themes cut right across, and we say, OK, our next crop of recruits are going to be in a theme, not just a school. The way you progress your career is partly by seeing the way you collaborate and joined in with others.”

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com