Lord Mandelson makes policy speech at Birkbeck

Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, set out his vision for higher education in a speech to university Vice Chancellors today, Monday 27 July, at Birkbeck, University of London, having toured the College’s soon-to-be-opened My Birkbeck Student Centre and the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development (the Babylab). The Minister said that, in the higher education landscape, that is now more diverse in its approaches than ever before, Birkbeck’s commitment to research and teaching excellence and its innovative approach to evening study is an exceptional example.

• Get the text of the speech here.

Professor David Latchman, Master of Birkbeck, welcomed the Secretary of State to the College, and said he was also delighted to be able to announce that Dr Naim Dangoor OBE and his Exilarch’s Foundation have pledged a half-a-million pound gift to Birkbeck, for the provision of scholarships to support lower income part-time students:

• Over a four-year period, the £500,000 will release a further £250,000 in government matched funding and will give up to 150 students access to a further £450,000 in government course and fee grants.
• It represents a total funding package of £1.2m to students who may not otherwise have been able to attend university this year.
• The non-repayable scholarships of up to £2,000 will be available to undergraduate and postgraduate students to cover course fees and associated study costs, such as books, travel and childcare.

“Dr Naim Dangoor’s incredibly generous donation will help students who may not have been able to enrol on full-time courses elsewhere, but can now consider Birkbeck’s unique part-time mode of learning an attractive alternative that makes financial sense in these difficult economic times,” said Professor Latchman.

“We are delighted that we are able to make this donation to Birkbeck, which offers Londoners such unique opportunities in higher education through part-time study,” commented Dr Dangoor.

The bursaries will also offer support for those students who fall into the ‘poverty trap’, whereby they earn above the threshold entitlement for government funding, but below the amount where they could afford their studies comfortably.

Dr Dangoor’s Exilarch’s Foundation, which has supported Birkbeck since 2005 and also funds the successful Westminster Academy School, believes in the importance of education and recognises Birkbeck’s unique position as London’s only specialist provider of part-time, evening higher education. 

Further information

Jane Stephenson, Head of Communications
email: j.stephenson@bbk.ac.uk
tel: 020 7380 3126

Birkbeck, University of London

Founded in 1823, Birkbeck has an unparalleled track record of successfully teaching mature students part-time, face-to-face in the evenings. Birkbeck enables 19,000 students from diverse social and educational backgrounds to participate in a broad range of higher education. Renowned for its world class research, it is a vibrant centre of academic excellence, and over 90% of Birkbeck academics are research active. The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise placed Birkbeck research in the top 25% of multi-faculty institutions in the UK. In 2006 Birkbeck was awarded a prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize for excellence in higher education research.