the timeline

21 December 1995 | Hackney Downs School closes

Founded in 1876 as the Grocers' Company's School, Hackney Downs became known in its grammar-school years as "the Jewish Eton" and produced Harold Pinter, Steven Berkoff, and Leon Kossoff. It became a comprehensive in the early 1970s, by which point the demographic of the surrounding borough had shifted considerably. By the time of its closure, more than 70 per cent of pupils spoke English as a second language and half came from households with no one in employment. Tabloids called it "Britain's worst school." Placed under special measures by Ofsted in 1994, it was closed on the recommendation of the first government-appointed Education Association, deployed by Education Secretary Gillian Shephard in July 1995. The Association cited a £3 million repair backlog, financial insolvency, and entrenched underperformance. The site was razed and the Mossbourne Community Academy was built in its place.

8 May 2001 | In Motion opens at the former Hackney Downs site

The graduating cohort of KIAD Rochester's BA (Hons) Editorial and Advertising Photography spent 100 days renovating the building. Over 400 photographs, projections, and installations were shown across the school's classrooms, corridors, and outdoor spaces.

1 August 2005 | KIAD merges with the Surrey Institute of Art & Design

The Kent Institute of Art and Design ceased to exist. The University College for the Creative Arts (UCCA) was formed in its place, with five campuses — Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone, and Rochester — and approximately 4,000 students. Rochester was now one campus of many, managed by a central administration.

May 2008 | UCCA becomes the University for the Creative Arts

The Privy Council granted full university status in May 2008; the new name took effect officially in September. The Rochester graduation ceremony, which had been held in Rochester Cathedral, was eventually consolidated into a single university-wide ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall.

12 October 2010 | The Browne Review

Lord Browne's review of higher education funding rejected a graduate tax, recommended removing the existing cap on annual fee levels, and proposed a levy on fees above £6,000. The Coalition Government rejected uncapped fees and introduced a cap of £9,000 from October 2012. This period saw significant cuts to the teaching grant.

2010 | The English Baccalaureate

Education Secretary Michael Gove introduced the EBacc, a school performance measure requiring evidence of pupil achievement across English, maths, sciences, a humanities subject, and a language. Arts subjects were excluded. Since the introduction of the EBacc, there has been a 42% decline in arts GCSE entries.

September 2012 | £9,000 fees take effect

The first cohort paying the new maximum fee entered university; by this point at least two-thirds of English universities had announced they would charge the maximum. The National Student Survey, introduced in 2005, took on increasing weight in how institutions were assessed and how they presented themselves to applicants.

2012–14 | UCA closes its Maidstone campus

The site was sold to MidKent College in 2012; the final UCA students completed their courses in July 2014. Maidstone College of Art, founded on 12 August 1867, was the oldest of the three institutions that formed KIAD. Its alumni included Tracey Emin, Tony Hart, and Roger Dean.

23 June 2016 | Brexit referendum

The UK voted to leave the European Union by 51.9 per cent to 48.1. The full consequences for higher education took several years to materialise. Freedom of movement, EEA fee parity, and continued participation in Erasmus were now in doubt.

2016 | Progress 8

A new accountability measure tracked pupil progress from primary school through GCSEs, weighting EBacc subjects heavily. 81.4 per cent of all GCSE entries in 2019 were in EBacc subjects, compared to 73.6 per cent in 2009. The proportion of GCSE entries in EBacc subjects grew from 70.4 per cent in 2015 to 81.4 per cent in 2019, coinciding with Progress 8 becoming the headline accountability measure.

2019 | The Augar Review

The government-commissioned review of post-18 education, chaired by Philip Augar, was reported in the press as identifying creative arts courses among those providing the lowest graduate earnings and the poorest value for taxpayers' money. The "low-value" framing fed into government rhetoric on "rip-off courses."

2020–21 | End of Erasmus and free movement

The UK's transition period ended on 1 January 2021. The government did not continue UK participation in Erasmus+, which since 1987 had funded student exchange across Europe. The replacement Turing Scheme funded only outward mobility, with no provision for incoming European students. EU and EEA students in the UK were reclassified as international students, subject to fees typically two to three times higher than home rates. In the 2023/24 academic year, 28,400 students from the European Union enrolled on a new course in UK universities — 57 per cent lower than in 2020/21, the last year when free movement rules applied.

Summer 2021 | The 50% funding cut

The Office for Students confirmed that the subsidy for each full-time student on an arts course would be cut from £243 to £121.50 in the 2021/22 academic year. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said the move would save around £20 million, with the savings redirected to STEM subjects. The University and College Union called it "one of the biggest attacks on arts and entertainment in English universities in living memory."

May 2021 | UCA announces the closure of its Rochester campus

UCA revealed plans to close the Rochester campus by September 2023. A UCA spokesperson said the campus had become "unsustainable" due to a backlog maintenance bill of £18 million. The eight-storey block on Fort Pitt Hill, which had housed art education in Medway since 1970, was declared unsustainable. Around 1,000 students and 100 staff were to be dispersed, with courses moving to UCA's campuses in Canterbury, Epsom, and Farnham.

The three Medway MPs — Kelly Tolhurst, Rehman Chishti, and Tracey Crouch — wrote an open letter to Vice-Chancellor Bashir Makhoul calling the decision "short-sighted" and noting that they had learned of the closure from the press: "if the UCA had reached out to us sooner, we would have done everything possible to help secure the government funding and maintain this important facility." Tolhurst told Arts Professional that "the Rochester campus has clearly been neglected for some time and the UCA is just not as invested in the Medway Towns as it is to its other more glamorous campuses." Dame Zandra Rhodes urged UCA to cut other campuses instead: "It's sad to think of that whole thing closing down and poor old Medway being the one that suffers." Twenty-one community arts organisations wrote to the Vice-Chancellor; a petition gathered thousands of signatures; an Asset of Community Value bid by the Halpern Charitable Foundation was rejected.

Makhoul rejected "the characterisation of this decision as short-sighted," framing it as "a strategic response to years of policies that have squeezed university funding to the bone, hitting practice-based subjects the hardest." He claimed to have been in "regular dialogue" with Medway Council about a potential new site in Rochester; the Kent Messenger understood the first the council had heard of UCA's plans was when the news of the closure broke.

July 2023 | "Rip-off degrees"

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced plans to cap recruitment onto courses deemed to deliver poor outcomes — measured by drop-out rates, graduate progression to professional jobs or postgraduate study, and earnings. Creative degrees, whose graduates often work freelance or in lower-paid sectors, were widely understood as the primary target. Sunak had previously, in January 2022, proposed scrapping student loans for those studying "Mickey Mouse" subjects.

September 2023 | UCA Rochester closes

Vice-Chancellor Bashir Makhoul resigned in March 2023, taking up a position as President and Vice-Chancellor of University Canada West with effect from October 2023. The Rochester campus closed in September, ending 137 years of art education in Medway. The building, as of 2026, is reported to be under consideration for residential conversion.

5 November 2025 | The EBacc is scrapped

The final report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, led by Professor Becky Francis, recommended the removal of the English Baccalaureate performance measure. The review found that the EBacc had "affected [students'] engagement and achievement, and limited their access to, and the time available for, arts and vocational subjects." The government accepted the recommendation the same day. The Department for Education stated that the decision followed "the failure of the EBacc measure to encourage take-up of subjects including languages and constraining student choice"; under the new arrangements, "arts GCSEs will be given equal status to humanities and languages, recognising their value in boosting confidence and broadening skills for a competitive job market." The reforms will take effect from September 2028. Labour's pre-election commitment had been that the arts should "no longer be the preserve of a privileged few.”