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You've spoken widely about schools and business, John. How important a role do you see higher education playing in getting the UK back on track?
I think the market is changing very rapidly and in part this is a consequence of tuition fees, which have been a real challenge for the higher education sector. But every cloud has a silver lining, and the silver lining is that it's bringing the customer, the young person, much closer to specifying what it is they really want to get out of higher education.
We're going to see more bespoke higher education provision and find universities flexing what they offer – making it more flexible, more part-time, great sandwich courses with companies, more sponsorship by companies, changing the curriculum to fit into what the sponsoring employer wants if they are supporting the young person. What I think we're going to see in the coming years is more work while you learn or learn while you work, namely a mixed market of people supporting themselves through earnings and learning at the same time.
How can higher education and business work together to better meet employer and employee needs?
Over the last decade I think we've seen a revolution in the collaboration in business and higher education, but it's been particularly focused on research collaboration. What I think will begin to happen now is more businesses will get involved in the curriculum side of universities, saying we will sponsor some students through a course, and help design STEM or computing courses – but we need it more relevant to the world of work.
We don't want it just relating to some national standards from some national exam board. Can we actually come up with something which is more bespoke for our needs? I think then we'll get a closer relationship on the curriculum side, the teaching side, to mirror the close relationship that exists on the research and innovation side.
Is there (still) a stigma attached to vocational study in the UK? What needs to change?
It saddens me that there's still a stigma attached to studying vocational qualifications – as a country we really have got to get over that and look at countries like Germany that have their dual system: one academic and one vocational, but then converge in the [student's] early 20s. When this happens it's got to have the same parity of esteem and status – it's quite hard to create that.
The challenge is that it's very easy to talk about somebody else's child going on an apprenticeship rather than going on and doing A-levels, but when will a professional or middle class parent think it's an option for their children, because that's parity of esteem. And I don't expect parents to see parity of esteem if the vocational qualifications on offer don't look rigorous and robust.
So I think we need to reform vocational qualifications. We need to make them more rigorous and robust. We should call pre-university vocational courses A-levels, because A-levels are the gold standard on the academic side. We'll only get real respect for vocational qualifications when we're prepared to call them the same.
Business needs creativity. By focusing on the skills and employability agenda, are we in danger of ignoring education's wider benefits?
I would be the first to admit that education has a purpose that goes well beyond the world of work, but I don't think we should polarise the two issues. Business increasingly isn't looking for a narrow view of education or a vocational specific view of education. In employability, what business is looking for are those cultural and social aspects of education that go well beyond the vocational or professional curriculum, somebody who is a citizen of the world, who is caring and considerate about their fellow workers and customers – those sorts of interpersonal skills come from that broader view of education.
You vocally support the UK staying in the European Union. How important are our ties with Europe for the future workforce, graduate or otherwise?
The majority of companies in this country believe that we should be in a reformed Europe that is more relevant to the European citizen and to businesses across the single market. Skills shortage has been a really big issue in the UK, even at a time when the economy hasn't been growing in areas like engineering for example – there are many companies I meet that have only been able to cope with skill shortages because they've been able to attract graduates to work there from other European countries.
One of the things young people and graduates might stand up and say the EU means to them is the ability to go to other countries and spend time in other countries. And that's not just being able to work in other countries. What we see now are quite a few continental universities offering their courses in English and attracting UK undergraduate students to do their degrees in those universities. So I think the single market for education and for labour is an important element of why people see a benefit from our membership of the EU.
How can business best invest in higher education?
When its comes to financial support, I would love to see a resurgence of sandwich courses. I think it's regrettable that the idea of spending a year in industry as part of a graduate degree has actually weakened. It won't be sandwich courses as I remember them, it won't be a fixed year, but using sandwich courses as an collaborative course, where there's more direct work experience, more practical studies as part of the degree, I think that's really valuable.
How can we strengthen ties between research and industry and why do we need to?
Many research collaborations focus on the high tech end of business and the industrial end of business and that's not surprising. But increasingly we're seeing collaboration by the service sector with university research. If you look at innovation in business, some of the most fantastic innovation has taken place in the service sector – but we need to see more collaboration and more medium-sized companies working with universities.
Large companies can develop quite sophisticated research relationships with universities, but medium-sized companies are the engines of growth of the economy and I think most universities would say its harder for medium-sized companies that have fewer resources to develop sophisticated relationships. Universities can reach out and do more because they are a trusted brand with medium-sized companies, and I would like to see more research collaboration with companies of that size.
Given that the universities minister sits within the Department for Business, Industry and Skills, what issues should he be focusing on in the years ahead?
There's no perfect solution to the design of government departments, as there's always going to be a border which is potentially the point where something can fall between the cracks. Universities are, however, employers, they are businesses, and the fifth biggest export sector contributing to our economic benefit. They are involved in communities and are major forces of regeneration. This is an economic narrative in that education has many other purposes too, but the inclusion of university in the department of BIS has been good for higher education.
Three issues:
1) Focus on part-time provision – we need more learning while you work and more bespoke provision
2) Part-time provision has been the cinderella of the education system, particularly in the way we've funded it. We've got to think, is it accessible to student loans? Are those student loans going to work with part-time students?
3) We have to ensure the university funding system and the relations with employers work for postgraduate students
John Cridland is director-general of the Confederation of British Industry. He will be speaking at a Guardian fringe event at the 2013 Labour party conference, debating the role universities play in economic growth – click here for more information about the event supported by Bright Britain
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