Higher Education in focus at The University of Manchester

We have started the new academic year with a return to the face-to-face Higher Education conference which has been suspended since the outbreak of COVID. When the pandemic commenced we were planning to visit The University of Manchester and I am very pleased that after 3 years delay we finally managed to hold the conference there on September 15th.

We were joined by 32 school HE advisors (in IB terms UCCs), as well as presenters from The University of Manchester, other universities, UACS, the IB and IBSCA. It was a very successful event with The University of Manchester’s Professor April McMahon outlining how the university was moving on from its pre-COVID approach to teaching, learning and assessment using the experience of the pandemic to adapt its approach. We also heard from Carys Wilgoss, senior policy advisor at UCAS, on how applicant numbers were projected to rise to 1 million by 2030. Given that expansion of university provision is very unlikely this suggests a squeeze on places in the coming years. There were then the regular inputs on subject applications such as medicine and engineering, support for applications outside of the UK, e.g. North America, and an update on how IB was supporting UCCs, applicants and universities.

We have asked delegates for feedback and we will be planning next year’s event in the near future.  If you have suggestions on possible content then please let me know your thoughts. To finish, we are very grateful to The University of Manchester and in particular their Admissions Officer (Training, Policy & Governance), Heidi Page, for her support and patience in organising the conference at her end.

Peter Fidczuk

Universities Officer