Once described by former education secretary Michael Gove as “the most important man in English education” for his work establishing the PISA league tables and tracking the performance of education systems globally, Andreas Schleicher is a leading expert on the challenges facing universities.
Currently Director for Education and Skills at the OECD, he has worked for over 20 years with ministers and policymakers around the world to improve the quality and equity of education.
In this online event, Schleicher was in conversation with Baroness Alison Wolf CBE, Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management at King's College London and co-author of the government-commissioned Augar Review of post-18 education funding.
They discussed a range of issues, including the pros and cons of alternative systems that are not based on government-backed income-contingent student loans; the results of the UK’s decision to transform polytechnic institutions into universities, and how they contrast with the outcomes in other countries; and whether the high international rankings that many UK universities enjoy have come at a cost of under-supporting the tertiary sector as a whole.