The Coming of Post-Institutional HE

Sir David Watson

Professor of Higher Education

Principal, Green Templeton College, Oxford

SKOPE Conference

3 November 2014

Outline

Two crises – “when the lights went out” (1974) and when the banks failed (2008)

The rise and fall of Public Sector Higher Education (PSHE)

Towards Post-institutional Higher education

Looking back at the 1970s

For fans of capitalism and markets, the late 1970s in the UK was a low point: 30% inflation, the IMF called in, the winter of discontent, oil shocks, stock markets at all-time low valuations, the US in reverse.

It was also with hindsight, a great turning point. Then we had the Thatcher and Reagan revolutions, privatization and de-regulation, the break up of the USSR, ‘The End of History,’ the opening up of China, and a 20-year stock market boom.

So it is strange to read the thesis du jour, Piketty’s Capital in the Twentieth Century, and see these past 40 years on a totally opposite trajectory: a descent from the sunlit uplands of

equality achieved in the late 1970s – the most equality ever – to a slough of despond of terrible mounting inequality.

Andrew Wileman (2014), My Life and Times, Management Today (September), 36-42

The seventies turned out to be the decade when the country began its transformation from steady economic growth to spasms of contraction, from industry to information and finance, from institutional authorities to individual freedoms, from center-left to centre-right. Global

competition happened in the seventies, and so did populist politics, special interest money, the personal computer and the cult of the self.

George Packer (2014) The Uses of Division, The New Yorker (August 11 & 18), 80

What happened in between? UK – Thatcher through Blair to the Coalition

USA – Reagan through the Bushes to gridlock

The neo-liberal paradigm and the death of the public sphere

“How much of a reckoning about the 1980s will there ultimately

be? What the police did then may never be fully exposed.The

same may go for the bankers. The privatised utilities seem vulnerable...Murdoch’s political dominance has surely

gone...the 90s and 00s the decades of complacency will be next. In an anxious country, the recent past is always to blame.”

Andy Beckett (2012), Thatcher, Murdoch, Hillsborough and beyond: what the 1980s did to Britain, The Guardian, 27 October

Dealing with crisis

Muddling through

Austerity

Precarity

Innovation

UK Government HE initiatives since 1963: twelve “frameworks

1. 1963: the Robbins report –expansion, creation of “new” universities, “ability to

benefit.”

2. 1965: the Woolwich speech – creation of the Polytechnics

3. 1972: the James report – reorganisation of teacher training, “diversification.”

4. 1980-85: the Tory cuts – withdrawal of “overseas” subsidy, White Paper on contraction and rationalisation

5. 1985: the National Advisory Body for Public Sector HE (NAB), “capping the pool,”centralisation of local authority HE

6. 1988: the Great Education Reform Act – incorporation of the Polytechnics, Central Institutions and large Colleges

7. 1992: Further & Higher Education Act – ending of the binary line, Funding Councils for devolved administrations, creation of the “new new” universities

8. 1997: the Dearing Report – fees for FT undergraduate students

9. 2004: Higher Education Act – variable fees, “new new new” universities, foundation degree awarding powers for FECs

10. 2009: Higher Ambitions – New Labour’s parting shot

11. 2010: the Browne Review – higher undergraduate fees, new student contribution system

12. 2011: Students at the Heart of the System

A Restlessness (or a Redundancy) of Reports

McNair Report (1944) – Teachers and Youth Leaders

Percy Report (1945) – Higher Technological Education

AUT (1958) – Policy for University Expansion

Anderson Report (1960) – Grants to Students

Franks (1963) – Britain’s Business Schools

NACTST (1965) – The Demand for and Supply of Teachers , 1963-86

CVCP (1972) – Use of Academic Staff Time

CDP (1974) – Many Arts, Many Skills: the Polytechnic Policy and Requirements for its Fulfilment

Finiston Report (1980) – Engineering our Future

Merrison Report (1982) – Support of University Scientific Research

NAB (1984) – A Strategy for Higher Education in the

late 1980s and beyond

Jarratt Report (1985) – Efficiency Studies in

Universities

Lindop Report (1985) – Academic validation in public

sector higher education CIHE (1987) –Higher Education-

Government Industry partnerships

ABRC (1987) – A Strategy for the Science Base

Roith Report (1990) – Research in the PCFC Sector

Leverhulme Inquiry (1991) – The future of higher

education

Robertson Report (1994) – Choosing to change:

access, choice and mobility

Kennedy Report (1997) – Learning Works – Further

Education

Fryer Report (1997) – Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning

Bett Report (1999) – Staff Pay and Conditions in Higher Education

Moser Report (1999) – Improving Literacy and Numeracy

NAO (2002) – Individual Learning Accounts

Roberts Report (2002) – Research Careers

Lambert Report (2003) – Review of Business-University Collaboration

Roberts Report (2003) – Review of Research Assessment

Schwartz Report (2004) – Fair Admissions to higher education

CUC (2004) – Guide for Members of Higher Education Governing Bodies

Leitch Report (2006) – World Class Skills

NIACE (2009) – Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning

Finch Report (2011) – Review of external examining

Milburn Report (2012) – How higher education can advance social mobility

Finch Report (2012) – Expanding access to research findings

Pearce Report (2012) – Review of Philanthropy in Higher Education

Wilson Report (2012) – Review of University-Business Collaboration

IPPR (2013) – Securing the future of Higher Education in England

UK HE policy: “mood swings”

Con 1 (1979-1985) – contraction and differentiation Con 2 (1985-97) – expansion and equality

New Labour 1 (1997-2004) – expansion and equality New Labour 2 (2004-2010) – return to two tiers, co-

payment

The Coalition 1 (2010-13) - contraction and radical co-payment

The Coalition 2 (2014-15) – expansion and “alternative providers”

James: framework 3

Towards the post-binary system

The “three-cycle” model

The DipHE

Public Sector Higher Education (PSHE) and the rise of the CNAA

The Rise and Fall of PSHE

Expanded when the university system wouldn’t

Was local and regional as well as national Was “planned” (locally by Regional Advisory Councils [RAC] and the

nationally – after the “capping of the pool” by the National Advisory Body [NAB])

Was quality-assured (the rise and fall of the Council for National Academic Awards [CNAA], 1965-1993)

Took teaching seriously Innovated in academic and vocational HE

Did breadth as well as depth (CNAA Principle 3) Was fundamentally collaborative (the “national university”) Worried the establishment (e.g. “reverse academic drift”)

Went quietly after the 1992 FHE Act (CNAA and the Committee of Directors of Polytechnics [CDP] in 1993; the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council [PCFC] in 1992)

The Society for Research into Higher Education

The Polytechnic Experiment

1965-1992

John Pratt

Robbins (1963)

Dearing (1997)

White Paper (2003)

UK unit public funding, 1979-2003

INDEX

Year University HEFCE Polytechnic

1979/80 100

100 1980/81 106

99 1981/82 103

94 1982/83 106

89 1983/84 107

82 1984/85 106

79 1985/86 103

78 1986/87 102

79 1987/88 105

76 1988/89 103

75 1989/90 100 100 - 1990/91

91

1991/92

86

1992/93

80

1993/94

75

1994/95

73

1995/96

70

1996/97

65

1997/98

64

1998/99

63

1999/2000

63

2000/01

62

2001/02

63

2002/03

63

CNAA “Principle 3”

Programmes of study ‘must stimulate an enquiring, analytical and creative approach, encouraging independent judgement and critical self-awareness’

Source: HESA 1996; 2002

Source: HESA 1996; 2002

University of Brighton: students by subject area, 1994/95 - 2001/02

Creative Arts & Design

Subjects Allied to Medicine

Biological Sciences

Computer Science

Physical Sciences

Social, Economic & Political Studies

Librarianship & Information Science

Languages

Agriculture & Related Subjects

Humanities

Medicine & Dentistry

Law

Business & Administrative Studies

Mathematical Sciences

Combined

Engineering & Technology

Architecture, Building & Planning

Education

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

1994/95 2001/02

Source: HESA 1996; 2002

The Browne review:

framework 11

Included part-time

Endorsed expansion

The student market

Transaction costs

No purely “private” solution

Proposed a “soft-cap” and a “levy”

Modelling and the effects of “write-off”

Little England

Willetts/Clegg: framework 12

Vouchers

ABB

“Consultations”

No research needed (in case...)

“Sub-prime goes to College” (The New York Post, 6 June 2010).

Prospects after 2015

Voucherisation (“The RAB charge is not real money” (David Willetts, THE, 18.19.14)

Student number controls

Homogenisation

Alternative providers (Vince Cable: some private providers are “a lot of dross,” Daily Telegraph, 7.10.14).

Impact

The “fourth age of research” (Jonathan Adams, Nature, 30.5.13 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7451/abs/497557a. html )

http://theconversation.com/after-the-crash-who-owns-the-british-

university-in-2014-30593

The post-institutional paradigm

Learners first

Thinking tertiary (the FE/HE boundary; “local learning ecologies”)

“Learning and earning”

ITC (including MOOCs)

Multi-mode funding and accreditation (whither “vouchers”?)

Institutional hybridity

Life-long learning

Learners first

“The polytechnics should attempt to redress the balance by making their students their primary consideration unambiguously and without fear or favour – students should come before subjects, before research, before demands of employers and before demands of the state. If they do this they will change the pattern of higher education in this country.

If they do not they will fail to do anything of significance. They must challenge many of the assumptions and practices of the existing

institutions and not merely fill a niche which these institutions have neglected. None of the preserves of other institutions of higher

education is sacrosanct. Academic education and research cannot be

left to the universities, professional education cannot be left to the

professions, teacher training cannot be left to the colleges of education, industrial training cannot be left to employers and trade unions.”

Eric Robinson, The New Polytechnics (1968) p. 91

The tertiary moment (2005)

FE and “local learning ecologies.”

Tomlinson, 14-19

HEFCE/LSC “lifelong learning networks”

RDA Skills Strategies

Watson, D. (2005) The tertiary moment? in Duke, Chris (ed.), The Tertiary Moment; what road to inclusive higher education? Leicester, NIACE

133-43

Open and Distance Learning

1838 University of London external degrees 1890s US “degrees by correspondence”

1920s NYU and Harvard “radio” degrees

1965 UK University of the Air (Open University)

The “mega-universities” (John Daniel)

2002 MIT On-line

2006 Khan Academy 2008 The “connectivist” movement (Manitoba)

2010 Udemy

2012 The Year of the MOOC (Udacity, Coursera, Futurelearn)

Watson, D. (2014) The Question of Conscience: higher education and personal responsibilty. London: IoE Press, 4-7.

Learning and Earning

Craft (Sennett on the “head and the hand”)

The Limits of Competence (Barnett)

The “new artisan” (Fraser and Thompson)

The cases of Microsoft and The SANS Institute (http://www.sans.org/ )

Accreditation

Recognition and portability (including APEL)

UK CATS Performance: 2011-12 693,891 students were enrolled on all years of undergraduate courses

in UK HEIs;

130,758 of these (18.8%) were admitted directly to years 2 and above;

27,895 (21.3%) of these students admitted to higher years held formal sub-degree qualifications (Foundation Degrees, Diplomas or Certificates of HE, Higher National Diplomas or Certificates, National Vocational Qualifications at Level 4 or above; etc.);

of these 7,829 (28.3%) joined the Open University, 1,702 (6.1%) the University of the West of Scotland 607 (2.2%) Birkbeck, and 604 (2.2%) the University of Staffordshire;

3,606 (2.8%) of the students entering higher years were admitted on the basis of HE credits earned in other institutions;

of these 2,333 (64.7%) joined the OU.

Watson, D. (2013) Credit Risk? Reviving credit accumulation and transfer in UK higher education. London: LFHE

US Performance: entrants in 2006

“What emerges is a complex picture in which one-third of all

students change institutions at some time before earning a

degree, a rate that is consistent across all types of institutions

outside of the for-profit sector (where the rate is lower). Slightly

more part-time students transferred than full-time students. Of

those who transfer:

37% transfer in their second year

22% transfer as late as their fourth or fifth years

25% transfer more than once

27% transfer across state lines

43% transfer into a public two-year college.”

The modern university: key types

1. The international research university 2. The professional formation university

3. The ‘curriculum innovation’ university

4. The distance/open learning university

5. The College

6. The specialised/single subject HEI

7. The “for profit” corporation

We are all “hybrids” now.

Why not a lifelong learning system? (1) Assets

HE diversity

Professional accreditation

The OU

Adult education (e.g. the WEA)

School-leaving age

Why not a lifelong learning system? (2) Inhibitions

Funding (and political) priorities Mistrust of the student market

Hierarchy (and the “royal route”)

Institutional practice

Fear of regulation

Number of HE students by mode of study and level of course, 1979-2011

Source: DES 1991-1992; DfE 1994; HESA 1996-2013

Stage 1: Complex Transitions

Source: Furlong 2008

What is to be done?

Institutional heads need to be less precious about the linking of their status with that of the prior experience of their student body.

Senior academic leaders (provosts, pro-vice-chancellors and others with responsibility for academic affairs) need to ensure that cross-institutional academic frameworks are transparent and fairly assessed.

Course leaders and tutors need to think hard about learner

autonomy and its implications.

Students need to play their parts as well. The best modern learning environments are characterised by an atmosphere of purposeful and principled negotiation.

Towards Post-Institutional HE

If UK HE is going to prosper in the contemporary world, it is going to have to become messier, less precious, more flexible, and significantly more cooperative.

1FLL Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning

T o m S c h u l l e r • D a v i d W a t s o n

Learning

Through

Life Inquiry into the Future for

Lifelong Learning

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