Linking London Lifelong Learning Network Workshop 25 3

Linking London Lifelong Learning Network Workshop, 25. 3. 2011 Part-Time Higher Education: Making it Work in Times of Austerity Professor John Annette, Pro Vice Master for Lifelong Learning and Engagement, Birkbeck College, University of London

Sir Howard Newby ’Colin Bell Memorial Lecture’ 30. 3. 04 Moreover as higher education moves from being a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity to a lifelong requirement which needs to be refreshed and updated across a lifetime, so it needs to be delivered in a more student-centered form- parttime as well as full-time, in the workplace, online, via distance learning and so forth. Despite much progress over the last decade in recognising the importance of lifelong learning, we are still some way from following through the implications.

Widening participation will mean more than just persuading a greater proportion of nontraditional students to apply for university; it will mean adapting the content and delivery of higher education to make it more relevant to their needs. Sir Howard Newby ’Colin Bell Memorial Lecture’ 30. 3. 04

Where are we now in 2011? • Knowns/ Known Unknowns / Unknown Unkowns…. • Browne Review (Logical but Limited World View…Principles of the Free Market) • End of HEFCE funding for Humanities and Social Sciences and Sciences. FUNDEMENTAL SHIFT • Comprehensive Spending Review (Free Market or is it? ) • Tuition Fee Increases- £ 6000 to £ 9000 – Simon Hughes as LIB DEM salesman… • White Paper in 2011 When?

Where are we in 2011? • • • End of Aim Higher? End of Lifelong Learning Networks? End of Sector Skills Councils? Cuts to CONNEXIONS Service End of EMA’s for progression to higher education? Reduction in financial support for Access Programmes? New support 2013? • End of HEFCE, QAA and OFFA into a new Higher Education Council?

Tuition Fee Increases • Income is based on fee income? • No HEFCE funding or ASN’s but is it a free market? What controls? • Differential markets- £ 6 k vs £ 9 k institutions? £ 7, 500 to break even…. • Private Sector Providers offering competition • Foreign Universities providing competition • FE Institutions charging £ 5 k or less?

Financial Support • Loans-KEY SUCCESS but what will be the eligibility criteria and what will be the terms for repayment for those in work • Access and Success Fund (ASF) This will replace wp funding. Details in the White Paper • National Scholarship Programme (NSP) – OFFA needs for Access Agreements for 2012£ 150 million? Will Part-time Students be eligible?

Financial Support (2) • Widening Participation Access Agreementsmonitoring/policing how HEI’s charging higher fees ensure widening participation. • Problem of limited definition of widening participation in terms of youth participation and free school meals

Key New Developments • By 2014 UCAS sole entry point for full-time/ parttime students-means to control numbers? • (NB. Linking London pilot programmes) • Student Experience – Student Charters and customer relations • IAG and Key Information Sets • Graduate Employability- evidence in Key Information sets • Beacons for Public Engagement-Volunteering Opportunities and Graduate Employability

New Developments? • ELQ is no longer relevant • Will 18 year olds increasingly study pt? • Will the unemployed seek cpd opportunities and even new qualifications? • Will HEI’s and FEC’s seek even more diverse income streams? • Will we need to become more commercial in our activities? IAG as a ‘social enterprise’?

What ever happened to…. . ? • Leitch Agenda and Employer Engagement? • Co-funded ASN’s? • Foundation Degrees and fdf…?

IAG and PT HE • Need for standardised information (UCAS but not until 2014? ) • Need for financial Information- loans, etc • Need for careers information • How to combine modes of PT study from classroom to work based learning • Support for combining study and work • Support for combining study and ‘life’

Whatever happened to the Learning Age? (1998 - 2010) • In The Learning Age: a renaissance for new Britain, the government’s Green Paper published in 1998, then Education Secretary, David Blunkett, stressed the hopes of and for lifelong learning: • Learning has a wider contribution. It helps made ours a civilised society, develops the spiritual side of our lives and promotes active citizenship. Learning enables people to play a full part in their community. It strengthens the family, the neighbourhood and consequently the nation. • What will the new White Paper have to say?