Priorities and policies for Higher Education and higher level vocational learning

David HarbourneEdge Foundation

We shall not survive in this world if we in Britain alone down-grade the non-university professional and technical sector. No other country in the Western world does so… Let us now move away from our snobbish caste-ridden hierarchical obsession with university status.

Anthony Crosland, April 1965

What we got instead

“It is time for an historic commitment to open higher education to half of all young people before they are 30.”

Labour Party General Election Manifesto, 2001

In 2012, participation in higher education reached

49.5%

But growth in HE has been uneven

Computer science

Engineering/technology

Physical sciences

Creative arts/design

Business/admin

Humanities

6.5

16.3

23.7

76.3

77

81.3

% Increase in first degrees 2002-12

(… and part-time provision has plummeted)

Degrees no longer guarantee good jobs

Non-graduate jobs, 2001 Non-graduate jobs, 2013

37%

47%

29%34%

What graduates do

Graduated less than 5 years ago Graduated more than 5 years ago

30 months after graduating

Creative arts & design

Law Engineering & technology

Subjects allied to medecine

05

10152025303540

% in non-graduate jobs in December 2011, 30 months after graduating

The official view: Greg Clark

I believe Higher Education is in a good place.The lazy criticism of our agenda to open up higher education is that we are sending people to university who shouldn’t go. I simply don’t buy it.

Greg Clark (continued)

• As long as 4 times as many children get to university from suburban London as from the estates of Nottingham I refuse to believe that the pool of ability is close to being exhausted.

• And this is not just about undergraduate education. We know that more and more employers are looking for Masters Degrees.

That’s not what Vince Cable is saying …

HE has grown in scale and prestige far ahead of FE, with adverse consequences.

It is time to create the conditions whereby HE and FE can both fulfil their respective missions for the people of this country, and better combine to achieve shared national goals.

Our post-secondary vocational sub-degree sector is small by international standards – probably well under 10% of the youth cohort, compared to a third of young people elsewhere.Even Scotland has higher numbers gaining Higher National qualifications relative to bachelor degrees.

Vince Cable, April 2014

Vince Cable’s solution

Higher apprenticeships are an important solution to the sub-degree gap … [and] should be seen as an increasingly attractive rival to the university degree.

A new generation of National Colleges [will provide] specialised institutions, acting as national centres of expertise, in key areas of the economy.

We want excellent existing colleges to set their own qualifications too.

Liam Byrne’s solution

To ensure universal high quality standards in Further Education, we should licence further education colleges as institutes of technical education.

There should be a radical increase in the number of apprenticeship opportunities.

There should be new “earn while you learn” Technical Degrees, co-funded, co-designed and co-delivered by employers and universities. Where appropriate universities should partner with a major college or networks of colleges with specialist facilities.

The UKCES view

There aren’t enough high quality technical institutions with genuine employer leadership, to deliver advanced technical education.

There has been lots of innovation, including the new National Colleges in England, but these will take time to embed and a greater scale of change is needed.

Our view is that further education colleges are well placed to fill the gap and should be supported to deliver higher level technical provision, alongside their wider offer.

However, a fundamental shift is needed across the FE sector to leverage higher level technical education and work more strategically with local businesses and universities.

In countries with powerful bachelor degree programmes, two year programmes have not taken off as they have elsewhere in the world.

Simon Field, OECD, November 2014

17

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40%

Percentage of adults aged 20 – 45 who have short cycle professional education and ‑training as their highest qualification (OECD survey of adult skills)

The OECD view: two worlds?

Learning and jobs: two worlds?

19

Switzerland

Tertiary A graduation rate

2000 12%

2008 32%

Tertiary B graduation rate

2000 14%

2008 19%

Much of this growth reflects the reclassification of some professional colleges as Universities of Applied Science (Fachhochschulen)

Switzerland: low rates of 15-24 unemployment (%)

Switzerland USA Canada OECD average UK0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

7.7

13.1 13.414.9

16.7

Q2, 2014

Maybe, in the end, the market will decide!