Government urged to prioritise flexible over full-time study

Too many young people are going straight from school into full-time undergraduate study because higher education resists the radical changes needed to make it fit for purpose for a sustainable economy, according to the former boss of the United Kingdom’s Open University, Professor Tim Blackman.

With the world facing technological upheaval, ecological disruption from climate change, and democratic erosion caused by disinformation, more higher education is needed – but not all in one go for 18- to 22-year-old school leavers.

Instead of concentrating on full-time honours degrees, which were created when universities were small and elite institutions, Blackman argues that higher education should be spread over a working lifetime for the majority of learners – with the focus on shorter, more efficiently designed and delivered qualifications, supported by a mix of individual, employer and state funding.

Blackman was vice-chancellor of the UK’s Open University from 2019 to 2024, and he spells out his recipe for change in a new debate paper from the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) titled A Call for Radical Reform: Higher Education for a Sustainable Economy.

The paper states that the old elite system rolled into the modern mass system of higher education with little thought about the appropriateness and affordability of providing such a large volume of learning straight after school, with the educational content expected to last a lifetime.

The result leaves students with mountains of debts and universities running out of cash and is unsuitable for a world faced with rapid technological change, ecological disruption and democratic erosion from disinformation and economic insecurity.

Government intervention

However, Blackman warns the necessary changes won’t happen without direct government intervention in higher education to prioritise part-time flexible learning over full-time study.

Blackman also wants to drive greater standardisation of courses between different universities to enable lifelong learning to succeed and make it easier for learners to switch from one university to another as they move jobs and to different parts of the country later in life and want to top up their qualifications.

Leaner regulation of higher education is also required, says Blackman, who recommends scrapping the complex and expensive “apparatus” of England's Office for Students and replacing it with less costly commissioners and a return to the old Higher Education Funding Council for England model to regulate quality in universities.

In an exclusive interview with University World News, Blackman said: “Despite past attempts by governments and some individual universities to encourage uptake of alternatives to the three- or four-year full-time honours degree, this qualification has continued to dominate undergraduate provision.

“The reason is more due to its status as a rite of passage for young people and a selection tool for employers than due to the qualification being the best way for people to benefit from higher education, or for the economy or society to benefit.”

He said shorter courses provided over time would make higher education more affordable and enable people to upskill or reskill over their working lifetime.

“This is especially important as economies and societies become more complex as technology advances and disinformation erodes trust in knowledge,” he noted.

More, not less, higher education

Blackman told University World News that far from arguing that fewer people should go to universities, the UK needs more higher education “if we are to rise to the challenge of debt, overconsumption and under-investment that threaten the sustainability of our economy”.

And he welcomed the UK Labour government’s recent Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, which set a new target to get two-thirds of young people participating in higher-level learning and training, saying: “Higher education needs to be universal, like secondary education. There is no biological basis for believing that less than about 90% of the population would not succeed in higher education.”

However, Blackman said universities must change how they do things, and “that won't happen without strong government intervention in what and how they teach and research”.

He accepts that many governments are reluctant to be seen as infringing institutional autonomy and “prefer to use complicated and costly arrangements to incentivise and regulate”. However, “this will not be enough to tackle the scale of risks we face,” he said.

Blackman described the UK's Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) – due to come into effect next year – as “a step in the right direction, but not far-reaching enough”.

Standardised curriculum

Among Blackman’s most controversial proposals is that the higher education curriculum should be standardised to put an end to what he describes as “a cottage industry” of universities designing different courses for the same subject and the same qualification, such as a degree in geography.

He points out this doesn’t happen for professional qualifications such as nursing, “where the core content is consistent across institutions because there are national standards for someone to be recognised as a nurse”.

He asks: “Why should it be any different for a geographer or other non-accredited subjects?”

Blackman said: “Consistency of core content would mean consistent assessment standards and, very importantly, would enable people to complete a diploma in, say, geography, and then top up to a degree later or at another institution without the time-consuming bespoke curriculum mapping that is currently often required – with some institutions not accepting credit from another institution at all.”

The idea of a common curriculum is likely to find opposition in some academic circles, with Rachel Brooks, professor of higher education and fellow of Linacre College, University of Oxford, telling University World News: “We already have subject benchmark statements, published by the Quality Assurance Agency, which inform the curriculum across the country.

“However, to go further than this and argue for a common curriculum seems highly problematic.

“Different universities have different areas of specialism – which feed into the undergraduate curriculum, commonly through optional modules.

“Not only are such courses appreciated by students – but they also consolidate the important links between education and research in many of our higher education institutions.”

Brooks agreed there are “many good reasons for wanting to promote more part-time, flexible learning and catering for those who want to learn on a part-time basis”.

However, she said this shouldn’t mean stopping further growth in full-time undergraduate degrees.

“This belies a narrow view of higher education in which it is seen as exclusively about preparation for the labour market. There is still huge demand for higher education in the UK – and we should not restrict the many benefits that flow from it to a specific proportion of the population,” said Brooks, who is president of the British Sociological Association.

Diversity and innovation

Another higher education expert questioning some of Blackman’s arguments, particularly on a common curriculum for higher education, is Dr Diana Beech, director of the Finsbury Institute at City St George’s, University of London.

She told University World News: "While standardisation could bring consistency – especially around key themes like sustainability and digital literacy – it risks undermining the diversity and innovation that make UK higher education globally distinctive.

“A careful balance is needed between coherence and institutional freedom to innovate, particularly if universities are to remain responsive to local and global challenges.”

However, Beech supported Blackman’s arguments about the LLE, telling University World News: “The LLE is promising in theory, but risks falling short in practice unless it is accompanied by a shift in how we value and support future learning.”

She agreed that if full-time honours degrees continue to dominate the student support system, the LLE could become a “bolt-on” rather than a genuine enabler of flexible, lifelong learning.

She also said it was crucial that any higher education reforms should not deter people from pursuing full degrees, adding: “The LLE should allow those unable to commit to three years of full-time study to progress at their own pace – without diminishing the aspiration of others.

“Encouraging shorter, stackable qualifications is, of course, welcome, but this must not come at the expense of aspiration. The goal should be to create a system that values both modular progression and full-time study, offering genuine student choice rather than forcing people into a binary decision.

“Reforming professional and occupational standards to support modular progression will be a good first step towards progress.”

Microcredentials

On the question of microcredentials, Blackman said that while they fitted into his future model for higher education, he considered short qualifications to be more important, as learners were “qualifying” in something.

“In that sense, microcredentials, modules and other accredited short courses are complementary but not substitutes,” he explained (noting that they may often not lead to qualifications).

Blackman told University World News: “You might be interested to know that in my discussions with the Department for Education I tried to persuade them not to include modules in the LLE but only qualifications, with strong incentives to have shorter qualifications.

“I felt modules should be funded from the apprenticeships levy and that students shouldn't take on debt for a course that isn't a qualification.

“In the end, modules are to be funded by the LLE but only ‘vocational’ modules, while the apprenticeships levy – now the ‘growth and skills levy’ – is being opened up to modules.”