A letter to me from my Member of Parliament....

Complete with a picture of Holborn Viaduct Station (in the good old days when there was a Holborn Viaduct Station)

Now back to business -


I have received a communication from my Member of Parliament, who happens to be Mr John Denham:

In that response to my email, the person replying (my member of Parliament) says that my concerns about people taking second qualifications are noted; that first of all I have to be reassured that no existing students doing such qualifications will be affected. In fact only those who are entering higher education from 2008/2009 will be affected with the pace of change being fairly slow to commence, to allow institutions to adjust to the changes.

I have been informed in this communication that the Minister for Lifelong learning has been in touch with the Vice Chancellor of the Open University to discuss the position; my source has acknowledged that there will need to be transitional protection for some universities and there is a substantial possibility that the Open University will receive this protection. However, the Open University like others will have to mull over the detail of what it is going to do because the policy has been put into place and now there needs to be thought put into the detailed planning.

My Member of Parliament says that all of the £100 million would be redistributed to support the priorities; the government wants people of all ages and backgrounds to go into the higher education arena for the first time. My MP wants the increase in those of the workforce with graduate level qualifications to go from 29% to 40%.. The source says that this means targeting money on people who are not already graduates.

My member of Parliament says that the Leitch report is going to be followed, whereby it is recommended that employers con-fund second qualifications and this will be applicable in both the private and public sectors. There is also a concern that it costs too much public money to reskill existing graduates, whereby it is cheaper to encourage people into higher education to get a first qualification at public expense.

There will be exemptions for shortage subjects, for example medicine and HEFCE have been asked whether or not there are other categories of students who should have attracted funding to do second or other equivalent level qualifications.

My Member of Parliament says that universities which adapt to these spending proposals and do it well stand to gain both money and reputation; my source says that after all there is £100m on offer here and possibly more to come in the spending review.

I will make a comment on what has been said at a later stage.