From Professor Richard Reece, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Education and Student Experience
Future plans for Kent
I wanted to update you all on work underway to develop our next University strategy, which is focused on ensuring we do more to put students at the heart of everything we do. This is being delivered through our Kent 2030 plan, which brings together a range of improvements based on suggestions from students.
Lots of this is due to come into effect from Autumn 2025 onwards, including planned changes to the structure of our academic year. We are also looking at the make-up of the courses we plan on recruiting to in the future, recognising that students have different needs and different expectations than they did in the past.
As part of this, we have started talking to staff in some areas about phasing out future recruitment to a number of courses. If agreed, this would only affect recruitment for future cohorts of students in these areas – for those studying them now, your teaching and graduation would carry on as normal.
These proposals are to do with our broader portfolio rather than any specific campus – we remain fully committed to our presence at Medway and as part of this will be looking at how we can refresh what we do to ensure we have a vibrant offer at Medway that matches what students and employers are looking for.
Why are we doing this?
We are always looking at ways we can do things differently as student demographics change, ensuring we match the ambition of students in what they can study at Kent and the ways we support them in doing that. Alongside this, like other universities across the country, we are responding to a challenging financial environment – we want to get ahead of this by building something different and better for future generations of Kent students.
What does it mean for you?
The Kent 2030 programme will be making improvements to lots of aspects of the student experience. As the programme develops, we will be in touch directly should any proposed changes affect you. Our priority throughout will be to ensure we maintain the quality and consistency of your course through to when you graduate, and your Division will be in touch via email shortly if there are proposed changes in your area as part of the current curriculum review.
None of the proposed plans being discussed would impact students’ ability to graduate or complete their courses, and as with any organisational changes, we will do everything we can to minimise the impact on your studies.
Find out more about Kent 2030
Change can be challenging for some colleagues but we are sure that these proposed changes are the right thing to do to ensure a positive future at Kent. We are working with Kent Union and staff unions to do everything we can to support affected staff as a result of the upcoming curriculum review. If you have questions or concerns about any of this, please contact Kent Union at union-president@kent.ac.uk or the Kent 2030 team at Kent2030Student@kent.ac.uk.
Want to hear more about how changes might affect your student journey and ask your questions? Join our next Student Open Forum from 15:30 – 16:30 on Wednesday 21 February online via Teams.