Desde las elecciones generales de hace 15 meses, el enfoque del gobierno británico en materia de educación ha sido, por decirlo suavemente, opaco. Esto ha sido sumamente frustrante, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta que el Partido Laborista comunicó al país, antes de asumir el cargo, que tenía un “plan”.

El nuevo Libro Blanco sobre Educación y Habilidades Post-16, publicado ayer, supone el comienzo de una lenta revelación. Es la primera parte de un tríptico que pronto se completará con el próximo Libro Blanco sobre las escuelas y los resultados de la Revisión del Currículo y la Evaluación.

La declaración oral ante el Parlamento sobre el Libro Blanco, presentada por la secretaria de Estado de Educación, Bridget Phillipson, sugirió que los ministros están especialmente orgullosos de sus nuevos niveles V. Estas cualificaciones profesionales se situarán entre los niveles A académicos y los niveles T ocupacionales, aunque será posible combinar los niveles A y los niveles V.

Si esto te suena familiar, es porque los BTEC y otras cualificaciones ya se encuentran en este espacio. Sin duda, ahora habrá algunos ajustes para simular que el mundo está cambiando sustancialmente. Pero los nuevos niveles V podrían acabar siendo más como esos vinilos que embellecen tu coche sin tocar el motor.

En otras palabras, podríamos terminar con los mismos instructores enseñando el mismo contenido a los mismos estudiantes. Esto es mejor que erradicar la tercera vía, lo cual, entre otras cosas, habría perjudicado el acceso a la educación superior. Sin embargo, los cambios anunciados tienen un coste de oportunidad. El tiempo y el dinero invertidos en ajustar y renovar las cualificaciones podrían haberse invertido en otras áreas.

En la reciente conferencia del Partido Laborista, se nos dijo que esperáramos claridad y coherencia. Es solo una ligera exageración decir que, en lo que respecta a la provisión de competencias, el Libro Blanco probablemente genere confusión y complejidad. En general, parece haber un retorno a la incitatismo que aquejó a los gobiernos laboristas antes de 2010.

En cuanto a la educación superior, la principal novedad del Libro Blanco es que el límite de la matrícula universitaria aumentará en línea con la inflación (pronosticada) durante los próximos dos años. El temor a superar la barrera de las 10.000 libras parece haberse disipado en un abrir y cerrar de ojos.

After that, fee increases are supposed to occur automatically, at least for places that meet “a higher quality threshold through the Office for Students”. Yet this will only occur in practice if the government finds time in the legislative calendar and Labour MPs play ball.

This news on fees has nonetheless been warmly welcomed by universities’ representative bodies, which have been calling for inflation protection. But the settlement does not go far enough in my view because while the fees will now go up in cash terms, they will not go up in real terms.

No other part of the education system would celebrate having the recent big real-terms cuts crystallised in this way. Moreover, the extra fee income is set to be taxed back via the new international student levy, just as this year’s fee rise has been taxed back in higher National Insurance contributions.

One surprise is that the White Paper says as much as it does on research, coming down decisively on the side of “specialisation”. When budgets are tight and research spending is fixed, tough decisions do have to be made. Worryingly, we are told this is likely to mean “funding a lower volume of research”.

The White Paper similarly stokes the fears of those who believe this government does not understand the raison d’être of broad-based universities. Higher education providers, we are told, should consider switching “to focus on one or two [disciplines] where they are strongest”.

Oddly for a government committed to greater levels of participation in higher education, ministers want to see “fewer broad generalist providers”. Even more oddly, they seem to think this will happen because they say it should.

It is worth considering what this would mean in practice. The closest institution to where I live is Oxford Brookes University. Its two best-performing areas are management and hospitality & leisure. Do ministers expect Brookes to consider giving up motorsport engineering and its links to the local Formula One teams or to stop training the hundreds of new teachers it educates each year?

Another surprise, which is snuck in through one short paragraph right at the back of the White Paper, is a commitment to deliver a new tool that resembles Progress 8 for higher education institutions. Progress 8 is a “value-added” accountability measure for secondary schools that considers how far pupils have progressed between primary school and their GCSEs.

We are told neither how this new initiative will work, given universities set their own curricula, nor how the Department for Education will ensure it is more effective than past “learning gain” initiatives in higher education. It seems unlikely to happen in practice, so it might have been wiser to revisit simpler teaching intensity measures than trying to retrofit Progress 8 on to higher education.

Despite the various new announcements, in the end I feel a little like Oliver Twist, wanting more. In recent Higher Education Policy Institute output, we have complained about the narrowness of the curriculum in the later years of schooling, considered the educational underperformance of young men and criticised the complex oversight of higher education. Yet, sadly, the White Paper has nothing specific to say on any of these issues. And when it comes to skills, it seems the multiplicity of funding streams, delivery partners and regulators will remain bewildering for employers and learners. Meanwhile, thanks to its pointed criticisms of higher education institutions, the White Paper passes new ammunition to the anti-university brigade.

Nonetheless, policy papers are like buses; they can arrive in threes. To understand this government’s approach to education overall, we must now wait for the schools White Paper and the results of the Curriculum and Assessment Review. Perhaps they will go further. We must hope they do.

Nick Hillman is director of the Higher Education Policy Institute.