The switch to remote learning sparked by the coronavirus crisis is likely to benefit UK universities in the long term by encouraging them to offer more online courses, a Times Higher Education debate between three former higher education ministers has heard.

Speaking in the first of a series of online É«ºÐÖ±²¥ events on post-pandemic higher education, Jo Johnson told a global audience of more than 1,200 people that the rapid pivot to virtual learning in UK universities would ¡°stand us in good stead¡±.

¡°This has, in some ways, been a necessary forcing process to get universities to move faster on how they deliver material digitally and online,¡± said Mr Johnson in conversation with Lord Willetts and Chris Skidmore.

He added that it was ¡°right that we are taking advantage of this crisis¡± by considering how distance learning was delivered and how it could be improved and scaled?up.

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¡°This process is forcing our brilliant academics to prepare academic courses at distance ¨C we should have been doing it anyway over the past decade, but we are now doing it and will get better and better at?it,¡± said Mr Johnson, who argued that this transformation would allow UK higher education to grow its presence in global markets that had not yet been properly explored.

¡°That is really where a lot of the exciting growth opportunities will be,¡± he explained, saying that it might allow more recruitment from ¡°income groups in Asia and Africa where young people do not necessarily want the full-fat, high-cost, three- to four-year programme living in an English-speaking country¡±.

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¡°We have to be ready as a system to meet the demand from these groups,¡± added Mr Johnson, who said the ¡°excellence we have had in traditional delivery of higher education will be replicated in time in these new ways of doing things¡±.

More widely, universities should also use the coronavirus crisis to assess their international recruitment processes and ensure that they were fully digital. ¡°Institutions that are messing around sending applications back and forth internationally are really going to fall behind,¡± he said.

While praising lecturers¡¯ rapid switch to remote learning, Mr Skidmore warned that ¡°there needs to be a debate about what good online learning looks like that places the tutor at the centre but does not just fall back on Zoom as an alternative¡±.

Lord Willetts agreed, saying that ¡°putting a lecture on Zoom was an immediate and basic start¡± that should be built on.

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¡°At its best, online pedagogy is very sophisticated, using data about what [students] are doing to improve the quality of the educational experience,¡± said Lord Willetts, adding that ¡°this takes a lot of work¡±.

¡°What is happening now is just the start,¡± he said.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com

Watch the full debate