Civil Servants visit LSBU to learn about higher education in action
The three-day visit was part of a Higher Education Immersion Programme (HEIP) designed to give DfE civil servants greater insight into the workings of the higher education sectorA group of five civil servants from the Department for Education (DfE) visited London South Bank University (LSBU) in December, to improve their practical understanding of how universities function on a daily basis.
The three-day visit was part of a Higher Education Immersion Programme (HEIP) designed to give DfE civil servants greater insight into the workings of the higher education sector. This is the third HEIP visit hosted by LSBU.
The programme offers DfE personnel a fully immersive, first-hand experience of staff and student life at a British university, while enhancing their overall understanding of the sector and the impact of their own work upon university performance and student outcomes.
During the visit, the civil servants met with key members of staff from across the University to discuss topics at the forefront of higher education, for example, the sector’s financial and regulatory environment and university policies of widening participation and student enterprise.
The group was also given the opportunity to take a tour of the facilities at Lambeth College (part of the ‘LSBU family’ of educational institutions) and meet with apprentices studying Civil Engineering and Quantity Surveying as well as HNC construction students to discuss the benefits of employer-sponsored education. The visit concluded with a demonstration of LSBU’s engineering facilities, including the virtual engineering lab.
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dave Phoenix said: “We were pleased to welcome the civil servants to LSBU and host our third HEIP visit. It is a valuable programme - giving those in Whitehall the opportunity to meet with the staff and students who are directly affected by the policies they design and implement which will hopefully inform further policy development in the future. As an institution it also provides us with an opportunity to demonstrate some of the diversity that exists within the sector.”
Aileen Almond from the Department of Education said: “Our visit gave me a brilliant insight on what LBSU offers, and how the LBSU group is developing. It was fantastic to meet students too, and hear about their experience. I’m really grateful to everyone who gave time to give us such a rounded and interesting programme.”