Getting on, not just getting in
Perhaps one of the most crucial challenges for navigating the Journey to a Million will also be a non-operational one at the other end of the talent pipeline — not just getting into higher education, but getting on after graduation. In other words, the ability of the higher education sector to effectively and strategically engage with employers at scale to connect graduates to opportunity. The widening participation agenda has rightly focused on access to higher education but ensuring that crystallises into opportunity for a now diverse graduate population has rapidly risen up the agenda. It means employers changing as well and learning from universities about how they also can widen access to their own opportunities and how they can then enable graduates in their early year careers to thrive and lead on to career progression.
My work on social mobility through the Purpose Coalition is bringing together private and public sector employers with a range of different universities. Not only can they learn from one another, it’s ever clearer to me that there are real opportunities for partnerships that go significantly further and beyond existing valuable research collaboration. There is clear potential for more co-creation of emerging education pathways, whether higher technical qualifications, in relation to lifelong learning, or microcredentials, as attitudes on when and how to pursue continued learning change. And above all there is the potential for collaboration to build ‘opportunity pipelines’ from education into employment opportunity, between likeminded education institutions and employers with a common focus on levelling up and driving social mobility.