The Conservatives are planning to attack the government over figures showing a thirty percent increase in applicants without a place at university. David Willetts argues that a modern economy needs more graduates, and that "If more people are achieving the required standard then it is a good thing if more of them go to university" — though this begs the question of what exactly “the required standard” is. As the BBC article linked to points out, this is a retreat from old Tory criticisms of increased student numbers.

In our ‘Total Focus’ interview with him for our current issue, he decried under-representation of students from poorer backgrounds at universities, a similar criticism to the one he made at the ‘Generation Intern’ event blogged about below. He is a consistent advocate of better careers advice services; his preference would be for an “all age” career service in every school and college across the land. He also wants to see the government funding more postgraduate ‘STEM’ (science, technology, engineering and maths) placements.

I doubt many Labourites or Liberal Democrats would object to these proposals, as they fit comfortably into a social democratic world view; though perhaps other readers would be better judges of that. The same ‘Total Focus’ feature interviews Pat McFadden, Labour’s Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the Lib Dem equivalent Stephen Williams.

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