The UfI Opportunity
The University for Industry (UfI) is the flagship in the government’s fleet of policies on lifelong learning. It is important to the OU so a progress report is timely.
UfI has made the transition from being a project of the Department for Education and Employment to becoming a company limited by guarantee. Hitherto the project has been run by a transition board chaired by Lord Sainsbury. A permanent board has now been established with Lord Dearing as chairman. There are nine other members of which I am one. The chief executive is Anne Wright, formerly vice-chancellor of the University of Sunderland.
One of Lord Dearing’s first aims is to bring clarity to the name of the organisation. His 1997 Dearing Report on higher education argued that the name university be restricted to institutions that have degree-awarding powers and research activity. The University for Industry does not aspire to meet these criteria. Furthermore market research among the people it is primarily meant to serve has shown that neither the term university, nor the term industry, have much appeal to them. Work on a new title is nearing completion and by May a new name for UfI will likely emerge.
The mission of UfI has not changed. It is to promote employability for individuals and competitiveness for companies. It will stimulate demand for lifelong learning by businesses and individuals and broker the provision of learning opportunities to meet skills needs.
In this statement the key word is broker. UfI will not itself be a provider but will develop ease of access to learning opportunities by working with partners to develop a nationwide network of learning centres, and by bringing forward an extensive portfolio of learning products meeting benchmark standards through commissioning new products or by negotiating the enhancement or endorsement of existing products. Additionally UfI will work to increase demand through advertising and marketing campaigns, supported by the call centre and information service based on Learning Direct.
The formal launch of UfI operations will take place in 2000. To gear itself up over the next year it has a budget of £44 million of which over a quarter, £12 million, is earmarked for marketing. This will enable UfI to make a strong start on encouraging people to become lifelong learners.
The OU is planning to be a major partner of UfI in the development of learning products and possibly in the operation of part of the learning centre network. We are in the process of putting together a joint venture with other institutions such as the National Extension College and the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand in order to address the mission of UfI directly. While university-level study is only a small part of this mission it is clear that if UfI is successful in creating a culture of lifelong learner in the UK many more people will aspire to earn degrees. Our goal is to attract many of them to the OU.