A new Debate Paper from the Higher Education Policy Institute by
Professor Tim Blackman argues full-time honours degree were
created when universities were small and elite institutions. They
were rolled over into the modern mass system of higher education
we have today 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.
Instead, Professor Tim Blackman says more people need to be
studying shorter courses, spreading the cost over time while
encouraging lifelong updating of skills and knowledge.
The author, who previously led The Open University, argues that a
new system would better suit learners at different life stages
and would make commuting or online learning more feasible,
instead of incurring the expense of relocating to study
residential courses.
This is one of several far-reaching recommendations made in A
Call for Radical Reform: Higher Education for a Sustainable
Economy (HEPI Debate Paper 41) to reshape higher education
so that it focuses on two challenges that Professor Blackman says
are 'existential':
- an unsustainable economy caused by
over-consumption driving climate change; and
- misinformation, which is corroding
common standards of knowledge and our ability to act together as
a society to tackle these challenges.
Universities, the report argues, are uniquely placed to prevent
what could be catastrophic breakdowns in our economy, environment
and democracy. They can provide the skills and knowledge needed
for the transition to a sustainable economy, which requires
re-industrialisation on a huge scale. And they can establish
common standards for agreeing facts and how certain we can be
about them, based on respect for evidence and openness to
criticism.
The recently announced plans for post-16 education and skills
provision in England are a step in the right direction by
strengthening education and training for all young people and
introducing more flexibility into lifelong learning. But
Professor Blackman argues that the higher education reforms do
not go far enough, add more complexity to an already complex
system and fail to learn from past policy failures.
He calls for more radical action, with direct government
intervention in higher education, greater standardisation of
courses and leaner regulation. He singles out the complex and
expensive 'apparatus' of England's Office for Students for
criticism, suggesting that an alternative, less costly approach
to regulating the quality of higher education would be
commissioners overseeing universities' strategies and how
performance is reported to their governing bodies.
Commenting on the post-16 education and skills plans,
Professor Tim Blackman:
'The commitment to two-thirds of young people entering higher
level education and training is welcome, but higher education
needs to be universal, like secondary education. There is no
biological basis for believing that less than about 90 per cent
of the population would not succeed in higher
education.
'Sustainable economic growth depends on wide participation in
acquiring high levels of skill and knowledge – including working
with artificial intelligence – and our ability to act as a
society on the risks we face depends on respect for evidence and
openness to criticism being universal and not confined to
conversations among scientists. A lot of higher education is
about passing on knowledge, on the basis that this is information
and not misinformation, and in particular passing on the critical
skills to tell the difference. We should not restrict this
ability to less than half the population.
'Now is the time for government and higher education to work
together on these urgent tasks, not by tinkering with the system
but fundamental reform'.
OBE, Director of the Higher
Education Policy Institute, said:
‘This report deserves to be read by every policymaker,
vice-chancellor and university governor because its bold and
radical ideas paint a completely different
future.
‘Professor Blackman addresses the key issues of our times,
including disinformation, climate change and the pressures on
public spending.
‘Not everyone in higher education will agree with what he has
written but everyone should engage with what he has to
say.'
Notes for editors
- Tim Blackman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Social
Policy at The Open University and was its Vice-Chancellor from
2019 to 2024. His previous influential HEPI paper from 2017,
The Comprehensive University: An Alternative to Social
Stratification by Academic Selection (HEPI Occasional
Paper 17), is still available on the HEPI website.
