Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya, founder and Chairman of WMG was delighted to welcome the Education Select Committee to WMG today (Monday 26th February).

Whilst at WMG, the Committee met with current students, studying on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, who were able to talk to them about teaching quality, tutor support, fees and how their degrees are helping them prepare for the world of work. They also met with students who are working and undertaking degree apprenticeships, paid for by their employers, and wanted to understand how their experiences differ to full-time students, and why they chose this route over a traditional university degree.

The Education Select Committee also had time for a tour of WMG R&D facilities and to meet with students who are working on student engineering projects and on research projects, so that they could understand how collaborative R&D is translated from the classroom into real world projects.

As part of the visit, there was an opportunity to meet with practitioners within the skills and education providers, including Kate Tague, Executive Principal for the WMG Academies for Engineering Trust.

Robert Halfon MP, Chair of the Education Select Committee, commented, “We were delighted to visit the world-class facilities at WMG today. Our visit has provided an excellent contribution to the Committee’s current inquiries into the quality of apprenticeship provision and value for money in higher education, and was a great opportunity to hear directly from students and staff. The degrees offered at the University of Warwick are not only offering students and the taxpayer value for money, but also helping us meet this country’s skills gap and providing a ladder of opportunity for our most disadvantaged young people to thrive in their future careers. This is exactly the type of education we believe higher education should be offering.”

Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, Chairman and founder of WMG said “It was my pleasure to host my colleagues from the Education Select Committee. They have been able to talk directly to students who are our future engineering talent and see first-hand some of the projects they are working on. I was impressed with their understanding of the challenges of delivering excellent and relevant apprenticeship programmes and the significance of these to our economy.”