Higher Education Reform

Helen Morgan Excerpts
Monday 17th July 2023

(10 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
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Yes. The University of Buckingham has taken an excellent leadership position and its two-year degree is very much welcomed by many people. We will introduce the lifelong learning entitlement, which will revolutionise how and when people go to university, what type of courses they take, for what period of time, and how they make those decisions over their entire career and lifetime.

Helen Morgan Portrait Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
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Many of my constituents study or have obtained degrees from Harper Adams University, just up the road. Those degrees are at the cutting edge of agriculture and the key challenge facing all of us, which is how to feed the planet in a sustainable way. Their degrees and the likely careers they go into are classified by the Office for National Statistics as “unprofessional”. Will the Secretary of State consider reviewing the data and taking a really hard look at how those occupations are classified, because some of my constituents would miss out on a really important opportunity to do a high-class and important degree?

Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
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I thank the hon. Lady. Harper Adams University is a fantastic university. It does a fantastic range of courses, more and more looking at agri-tech, the technology within agriculture. I am sure it offers fantastic high quality to its students. There have been discussions about the professions and how the data is organised, so I will look at that. A number have raised that concern, not just those in agriculture.