#BattleFest2019: What’s the point of going to university?

Listen to this debate from the Battle of Ideas festival 2019:

More people now attend university in the UK than ever, but there is much less clarity about what university is for. For many, it is simply a step on the career ladder between school and work. For others, higher learning is about pursuing knowledge for its own sake. Do universities even do a good job at preparing people for jobs, or should we make more use of on-the-job training for that purpose? Do vocational qualifications merit the same prestige as academic degrees? Does everyone deserve the opportunity to spend three years at university – or is it an evasion of the ‘real world’?

Speakers include:

KIRSTIE DONNELLY MBE group managing director, City & Guilds Group; commissioner, Labour Party Lifelong Learning Commission

DENNIS HAYES professor of education, University of Derby; founder and director, Academics For Academic Freedom (AFAF); co-author, The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education

JHANELLE WHITE student, King’s College London; founder and chair, Political Sweep

PROFESSOR ALISON WOLF author, The XX Factor: how the rise of working women has created a far less equal world; cross-bench peer

CHAIR: DAVID BOWDEN associate fellow, Academy of Ideas