Always questioned when they got rid of all Polytechnics. Academic study is not for all, but those who choose that path should be given the best opportunity, whether it’s more theoretical, or more practical:
MP and historian Tristram Hunt tells John Morgan about reviving lost skills and improving teaching
The “polytechnic brand” should be revived in higher education to recover skills lost to the UK economy when the polytechnics became universities, according to a Labour MP and academic.
Tristram Hunt, who still teaches history at Queen Mary, University of London on Monday mornings despite being MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, envisages sixth-form and further education colleges taking a greater role in teaching vocational skills in higher education.
Speaking to Times Higher Education during Labour’s recent party conference in Manchester, he said the conversation about vocational education had “changed quite markedly” at secondary level as well as for students aged between 14 and 19 because of the drive to set up new university technical colleges.
Read full story, and read Sally Feldman’s ideas.