DIUS by numbers

Strategic posts by the DIUS and DCSF continue to bombard us on a weekly basis at present. The latest tranche of policies and strategies are tightly summarised again by Colin Besley's policy watch. This latest offering by Colin compliments two recent posts covering a CBI skills survey and an appearance of Lord Leitch at a recent select committee. He was asked questions regarding the scare mongering thats surrounded his "up skill or we'll be the third world" report. If you think its all scaremongering, I was speaking to a colleague last week who informed me that in the last 3 years , China has created 10 new Universities, each the intake size of Birmingham. Not thats not scaremongering, that genuinely scary. Especially for all of those UK Uni's who are relying on foreign students to boost the coffers! They wont want to come to the UK when they've got it all in China now, will they? Watch the Shift happens video on globalization ( on my old blog ) that puts all of this into perspective.

...If you want to understand where post – 16 education policy is headed, then this recent DIUS Business Plan ‘Investing in our future’ is pretty useful. And if you like numbers, it’s even better for the Plan is stuffed with them including 7 top ‘corporate risks,’ 8 strategic messages, 15 key policy deliverables, 18 partner bodies and agencies, let alone 2 critical Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets and 6 Departmental Strategic Objectives (DSOs.) And it may not stop there, “our immediate priorities” the Plan outlines, “will evolve on an ongoing basis in line with the developing DIUS agenda and Ministerial priorities.”