UK higher education in 2003: everchanging novelty or persistent, familiar issues

1
UK higher education in 2003 ever-changing
novelty or persistent, familiar issues?

• Dr Peter Wright, consultant (ex- QAA)
• Presentation to the 1994 Group Senior Management
  project module
• University of Warwick, 1 April 2003

2
Change, change always change!

• More change in a dozen years than ever before ??
  For
• example
• Political salience HE of strategic political
  importance knowledge economy, R D, social
  inclusion/effectiveness, international standing
  and comparability, accountability/quality
• Structural reform Single HE sector since 1992
  some legal definition, the rise of HEFCE,
  quality, information, etc.

3
Change, change always change?

• Transformed funding state subsidy to individual
  beneficiaries new market forces (or
  simulation) diversity (?) weakening of
  producer control, Govt rejection of special
  case view of HE
• Expansion ten-fold since Robbins (1963)
  doubling since 1989 the end of scarcity?
• And much else

4
Size a great increase in scale

• Students
• 1921 (Univs only) 12,400 FT and c. 3,000PT
• 1962-3 216,000 FT (Un118k TT 55k AFE
  3k est 100k PT apart ITT)
• 1991 1,275,000 (total FT PT)
• 2001 2,122,000 (total FT PT)
• Age-participation rates
• 1962 8.5 (of which 4 univs)
• 1980s 15-18
• 45 (34 graduation rate)
• 2010 50 ??

5
Many more universities

• UK UNIVERSITIES
• 1250 2 (England 2 univs c1250-1836)
• 1495 5 (Ox/Cam Glas, St Andws Aberdeen
• 1583 6 ( Edinburgh)
• 1836 8 (Engl 4 unis O/C Dur Lond)
• 16
• 1958 24
• 1963 32
• 1989 46
• 2003 113
• UCAS estimates c.48,000 distinct programmes

6
Changing HE result of massification?

• Martin Trows distinctions elite (lt15
  participation), mass (gt 15) and universal
  (gt50)
• Strong growth in UK
• C. 1890-1920 20,000-gt50,000 impact of Civics,
  TeachTrng, WW1 and 12 London polys -gt 5 ?
• 1955-72 125,00-gt750,000 the Robbins
  settlement new univs, new polys and impact of
  1944 Education Act -gt 15
• 1989-97 c.900,00-gt 1,700,000 1992 Act, school,
  exam change and economic pressure -gt 40

7
Changing HE massification?

• Mass scale exerts pressures for change e.g.
• Students more heterogeneous
• Programmes more responsive to demands
• HE more diverse in purpose, structure and
  experience
• Scarcity ceases to distinguish graduates
• New forms of learning and teaching are needed
• Calls for public accountability and quality
  assurance
• BUT
• British HE becomes a mass system in its public
• structures, but remains an elite one in its
  private
• instincts. Peter Scott, 1995, p.2

8
Structural persistence aspects

• But change is always in a context e.g
• Taken-for-granted assumptions, dominant models,
  implicit values, myth, what seems natural
• The logic of previous actions, institutional
  structure and ways of dong things
• The lessons of experience
• Vested interests, political no-go areas, etc

9
Structural tendencies The Anglo-Scottish contrast

• Consider the following.
• At the Act of Union (1707), England had an
  estimated population inc Wales of around five
  and a half million and two universities Oxford
  and Cambridge
• Scotland, had an estimated one million and four
  universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen
  technically two distinct colleges and
  Edinburgh.
• This, alone, suggests that universities played
  distinctively
• different roles in the two countries (a
  distinction still evident
• almost 300 years later) and illustrates some of
  the lasting
• influence of structural tendencies.

10
Persistent themes

• Contemporary topics that represent persistent
• themes
• Wider participation
• Vocational HE
• The language of success and achievement

11
The special circumstances of English universities

• Oxbridge pre-dates the State yet has never been
  totally reconstituted
• Nonetheless, a long, informal Oxbridge (later,
  other top universities) /State relationship of
  trust, tacit understanding and assumed
  coincidence of purpose (cf 1931 the Sir Walter
  Buchanan Riddell incident)
• C19th reforms carried through with State support
• Industrial revolution largely by-passed English
  universities economic involvement slow and
  insecure even professions or state service -
  slow to develop anti-vocationalism, academic
  drift (John Pratt Tyrrell Burgess) rise of
  powerful, independent PSBs
• Technology only fully accepted into universities
  from 1950s
• The long English hiatus Cambridge 1294
  London 1836

12
Distinctive features of English HE the Oxbridge
model c. 1850

• University entails an exclusive, shared
  residential experience to socialise and finish
  a national, homogeneous, elite - linguistic cues
• (Seen by some middle-class parents as a costly
  induction of their sons into aristocratic
  extravagance and debauchery.)
• A nursery (esp Oxford) for the, practice, culture
  and clergy of the Anglican church
• A setting for intellectual brilliance for a few
• The university a thing apart- mysterious and
  inaccessible by nature Hardys Christminster

13
English HE exclusion and elitism

• Exclusion and scarcity the defining
  characteristics of the dominant university
  tradition not accidental attributes epitomised
  by the rise and spread of classified Honours
• Achievement characterised in terms of
  excellence-minus NOT sufficiency-plus
• Until 1960s participation very low - lowest in
  Europe in late c.19th probably below Tsarist
  Russia
• Students in C19 England more from aristocracy,
  gentry and urban rich - less middle class - than
  Continental Europe
• English HE shaped by social inequality a costly
  residential experience coexistence of
  undemanding socialisation and competitive
  intellectual brilliance

14
English HE expanded elitism or diversity?

• Latent paradox how expand a system based on
  shared standards in which excellence is
  significantly defined by its scarcity?
• The Robbins trap(Martin Trow)
• The myth of comparability of standards

15
Change and expansion

• Post-war settlement and HE the policy framework
• Robbins (October 1963) Growth by expanding an
  elite system rather than by differentiation
  Expanded elitism? the Robbins Trap (Martin
  Trow)
• Made possible by measures that created and
  sustained a national, largely residential HE
  market e.g., 1960 Anderson grants report and
  fees policy
• Partly contradicted by Tony Crosland's-Sir Toby
  Weavers polytechnic policy (announced March 1965
  in Croslands Woolwich speech)

16
What now?

• Is diversity simply the road to hierarchy?
• Is organisational hierarchy better/worse than
  implicit reputation hierarchy?
• How define the good independently of the scarce?
• Beware of using HE primary as a means for social
  engineering

17
Changing HE result of structural tendencies? The
long university hiatus

• New, C19th civic colleges and universities
  established, often on Scottish models
• stressed local needs, technical and applied
  subjects and often embraced provincial medical
  schools
• but slow to grow
• under pressure to provide general culture and
  prepare candidates for new, public examinations
  (civil service, army, etc.)