Recent policy developments to create an integrated tertiary education system in England must tackle the challenges of bringing together sectors and institutions that have long operated in fragmented and isolated ways. The sector also faces ongoing contestations of ideas and values that shape perspectives and practices. In particular, the purposes of tertiary education can be contested.

This presentation examines stakeholders’ perspectives on the purposes a coordinated tertiary system should serve. Drawing on 26 interviews with key stakeholders across the tertiary education sector in England and five workshops with learners, the presentation shows that many participants agree that current policy debates tend to frame the purposes of the tertiary education system in narrow economic and instrumental terms. In contrast, participants articulated a range of broader purposes extending beyond economic growth, including social justice, equality and public good, as well as students’ development and agency. The presentation highlights the importance of articulating shared principles to support collaboration and coordination within a new system, and cautions against depoliticised policy narratives that reduce political concerns to issues of technical efficiency and purely economic agendas.

Xin Xu is Departmental Lecturer in Higher/Tertiary Education at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, and Deputy Director of the Oxford University Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance. Her research focuses on the cultural political economy of higher and tertiary education.

Gonzalo Hidalgo-Bazán is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. His research interests include the political dimensions of education policy across macro, meso, and micro levels, with a particular focus on the lived effects of ‘quality’ discourses on education actors.