Today, the Office for Students (OfS) publishes proposals for a
new strategy for 2025-30 that sets out a sharper purpose for the
regulator: it will ensure that students from all backgrounds
benefit from high quality higher education, delivered by a
diverse, sustainable sector that continues to improve.
The proposed strategy prioritises quality, the wider student
interest, and sector resilience in an uncertain and challenging
environment. Equality of opportunity underpins each of these
priorities.
The strategy represents a bold and urgent agenda for change that
will guide the OfS's activities as a regulator over the next five
years. It also charts a course for reform of the higher education
sector as it continues to make its important contributions to
growth and opportunity.
The strategy includes the transformation of the OfS's approach to
regulating quality, with the development of an integrated
approach that drives continuous improvement across the sector. It
seeks to strengthen the OfS's role as a champion of the student
interest, by ensuring students are treated fairly. And it aims to
support the financial resilience of the higher education sector,
working in partnership with institutions with a renewed focus on
effective governance.
In developing the strategy, the OfS sought the views of current,
prospective, and former students, as well university and college
staff from across the country. It explains how the OfS will
reform as a regulator, building on recommendations from OfS
interim chair Sir David Behan's Public Bodies Review of the OfS.
A consultation on the strategy will run from 12 December 2024 to
20 February 2025.
The strategy sets out three priorities and six goals that will
help the OfS – in collaboration with students, universities and
colleges, and government – to secure positive experiences of
higher education for students:
Quality
- Students receive a high quality education that has a
significant and enduring positive impact on their lives and
careers, delivered by institutions that continue to improve the
quality of their courses.
- Prospective students have a range of high quality options and
are well equipped to exercise informed choice about what, where,
when and how they study.
The wider student experience
- Students receive the higher education experiences they were
promised.
- Students benefit from rich and rewarding wider environments
that help them to make the most of their time in higher
education.
Sector resilience
- A financially resilient sector delivers high quality higher
education and student choice in the context of constrained
finances.
- Effectively governed institutions successfully navigate an
environment of increased financial and strategic risk, enabling
students to reap the benefits of higher education while giving
taxpayers confidence that public funding is used appropriately.
In a statement on the consultation document interim chair of the
OfS Sir said:
‘The higher education sector is facing a period of significant
change. It's therefore important that we are confident and agile
in our work to protect the interests of students and help
universities and colleges continue to power growth and drive
opportunity.
‘We've identified three areas of strategic priority: quality, the
wider student interest, and sector resilience. Underpinning these
is the aim that anyone with the ability and desire to pursue
higher education should have the opportunity to access the
life-changing benefits it can bring.
‘To deliver these ambitious proposals, the OfS must change as a
regulator. The student interest is not fixed, and as students'
priorities change it is incumbent on us to continue to listen and
learn, as we embed their perspectives in our work.'
Also commenting, OfS chief executive Susan Lapworth said:
‘Our proposals have been driven by what we heard from students
and colleagues working in institutions across the sector about
their priorities and concerns for the future of higher education.
Students told us about the challenges they face and what they
need from their institution to maximise the benefits from their
education, now and over the longer term. They talked about the
importance of being treated fairly.
‘We've also thought hard about how the OfS needs to develop as a
regulator, identifying what is working and what needs to change.
The recommendations of the recent OfS Public Bodies Review set a
pathway towards a bold and flexible approach, and underscore the
need to work at pace at a challenging time for the sector.
‘In the strategy we explain our purpose, our three priorities –
quality, the wider student interest, and sector resilience – and
the thinking that lies behind them. We‘re keen to hear from
students, students' unions, the universities and colleges we
regulate, and anyone else with an interest in higher education,
as we take this work forward.'
The OfS will be running a series of webinars for students,
students' unions, universities, colleges, and others interested
in this work to hear their views and support their responses to
the consultation.
ENDS
Notes
- The Office for Students is the independent regulator for
higher education in England. Our aim is to ensure that students
from all backgrounds benefit from high quality higher education,
delivered by a diverse, sustainable sector that continues to
improve.
- You can respond to the consultation by filling out the form:
https://officeforstudents.org.uk/consultation-on-ofs-strategy-for-2025-to-2030/
