Labour¡¯s shadow universities and science minister has criticised government ministers such as Michael Gove for supposedly favouring the Russell Group in their policies.

Shabana Mahmood also signalled that a Labour government could ask business to pay more towards the cost of higher education and allow students to transfer between colleges and universities.

Ms Mahmood was expected to deliver a speech titled ¡°Working towards a One Nation higher education policy¡± at the Association of University Administrators conference in Edinburgh on March.

Although the speech offered no new detail on Labour¡¯s central policy challenge - whether to pledge to cut fees or introduce a graduate tax - it did try to establish the party¡¯s philosophical approach to the sector.

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Ms Mahmood attempted to outline the policy implications of Labour leader Ed Miliband¡¯s ¡°One Nation¡± vision, which she described as ¡°giving everyone a stake, sharing prosperity and preserving the institutions that bind us together¡±.

She was expected to say at the conference that the government¡¯s ¡°obsession with markets¡± had ¡°boiled down all of higher education to mere transactions¡­Students are consumers, money is king and¡­higher education is essentially a private good¡±.

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Ms Mahmood appeared to call for students to be given a greater role in university decision-making, governance and learning. She called for ¡°a model built on trust rather than transaction¡±, which ¡°would see students as active participants in their university experience¡± and in ¡°co-creating better institutions¡±.

She suggested ¡°exploring feedback models that go further than asking simply what students want, but that instead instigate real partnerships that let students and staff organise around issues that matter to them¡±.

On funding, Ms Mahmood said that ¡°in such difficult economic times, the time might be right to ask if business has a greater role to play in [the] overall balance of funding¡±.

She criticised the coalition for scrapping the Aimhigher national outreach programme and said that a Labour government would ¡°urgently restore¡± widening partici-pation as a policy priority.

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And in an apparent critique of Mr Gove, the education secretary, and his emphasis on access to Russell Group universities, she said: ¡°Our policy cannot simply be based on the prejudices¡­of government ministers¡­no one group of universities can provide a silver bullet.¡±

Ms Mahmood also said that mature and part-time students, whose numbers have dropped under the new fees and funding system, have been ¡°left out of the question of participation¡±.

She said that collaborations between universities and further education colleges will have to ¡°be the rule, not the exception¡±, with the state of the labour market bringing these issues into sharp focus.

¡°What¡¯s more, we have the tools at our disposal: long-held¡­relationships across universities and colleges,¡± she added. ¡°A system of credit that could be redeployed to mete out ambitions for flexibility and to strengthen lifelong learning.¡±

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john.morgan@tsleducation.com