Tag: requires

  • Responding to the International Education Strategy requires an appreciation of how fast the world is changing

    Responding to the International Education Strategy requires an appreciation of how fast the world is changing

    The long-awaited new UK international education strategy looks and feels very different from the last one.

    Gone is the target for international recruitment from the previous strategy, which had, in any case, been exceeded substantially. It has been replaced by a “bold ambition” to grow overall education exports to £40bn per year by 2030 (the figure for 2022 was calculated at £32.3bn).

    The emphasis is on growing transnational education (TNE) and partnerships in education and research, as well as outward student mobility, and the UK’s global reputation in education. There is much to welcome in this strategy. Not least the cross-government (FCDO, DfE and DBT) ownership of the agenda, and the recognition that the rapidly changing geopolitical landscape requires support from the UK government and its institutions to support the sector.

    But let’s turn to what isn’t in the strategy. Great strategies are adaptable to a changing landscape, and the external environment in international education is shifting very rapidly.

    Times change

    Two major issues are worth highlighting. First, there is no such thing as a single TNE model, and the financial margins differ markedly depending on the host country and the teaching model. The margins depend on the nature of the regulatory regime and the nature of the host country partnership(s). International campuses which involve an element of research activity are also more expensive to run.

    It’s fair to say that many UK universities operating overseas have tended to engage in TNE not solely because of financial margin, but often to raise their international profile in order to attract more direct recruitment to their UK campuses. Others make a larger margin by adopting a very streamlined and low-cost teaching model.

    Second, the financial sustainability of UK universities has been greatly impaired by the instability of direct international recruitment. The international education strategy uses the cautious language of “sustainably recruiting high-quality students” to the UK, not least because of the difficult immigration debates student flows have caused.

    Canada, Australia and the USA – the other three of the “Big Four” international student destinations – have had similar debates on student visas. But the shift from the Big Four dominating international direct recruitment to a situation where a “Big Fourteen” have come to compete more aggressively for this market has been very sudden, and has left the UK and other anglophone countries having to compete much more aggressively.

    The countries experiencing growth range from Europe (for example France, Germany and the Netherlands) to Asian destinations (such as China, Korea and Malaysia). There are many reasons why these new destinations have become more competitive beyond the student visa regime: student safety, work experience opportunities, pricing/affordability, cultural and language factors, and the geopolitical environment have all played a part.

    Universities in the Big Four are responding by competing on some of these fronts. Many of the new countries and jurisdictions in the Big Fourteen have explicit targets to grow international numbers, unlike the new UK strategy (e.g. Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and France). Many non-Anglophone countries have embraced English language teaching, especially at master’s level.

    We need new models

    But is this a definitive trend we are observing away from the Big Four – or is the market just becoming more contestable and the landscape will evolve even further?

    I would argue the latter: I believe that the international recruitment market could continue to evolve rapidly. Under the circumstances, universities in the more established markets will want to forecast the potential short-term trends and cycles in student demand, but more importantly the underlying factors: to what extent are some factors like studying closer to home important for students in large sender markets like China and India? To what extent are there trade-offs between different factors such as the cultural affinity of the host nation and affordability/pricing? Economic theory, and indeed the instability of flows since the pandemic, suggests that these factors do interact and there are trade-offs.

    University leaders will want to gain a much more sophisticated market understanding in the next five years than relying on the simple linear market trends which we adopted in our recruitment forecasts 10-15 years ago. That will require much more refined economic analysis of what students (and their families) think about international study.

    Similarly, UK and other universities jumping on the accelerating TNE bandwagon will want to understand how this interfaces with direct recruitment in the Big Fourteen. We know that an in-country TNE presence in a large sender market can have an impact on direct recruitment.

    Watch this landscape carefully over the next five years – it will rapidly evolve.

    Source link

  • Supporting students and free speech on campus requires reform

    Supporting students and free speech on campus requires reform

    The recent polling on students’ views on free speech, published by HEPI, presents what looks like a confusing and muddled picture of students’ perspectives.

    On the one hand, today’s students appear more alert to the demands of safety and security than previous cohorts, with increased support for the use of content warnings, safe space policies, and a decent majority (63 per cent) who agree with the premise that protection from discrimination and ensuring the dignity of minorities can be more important than unlimited freedom of expression.

    On the other, the same cohort of students expresses support for a good number of principled free speech positions, with 70 per cent agreeing that universities should never limit free speech, and 52 per cent that education should “not be comfortable” because “universities are places of debate and challenging ideas.” There is also increased support for the proposition that “a lot of student societies are overly sensitive.”

    If you’re searching for coherence in students’ position then none of our collective mental models seems to apply – whether that’s a “woke” model (in the pejorative sense of snowflake students drawing equivalence of mild offence with grievous bodily harm), or from the classical liberal pro-free speech standpoint. These, we are forced to conclude, may not be the mental models current students are using in their understanding of navigating complex political territory.

    One of the characteristics of the free speech debate has been that a lot has been said about students, and the sort of environment they ought to be exposed to while on campus, but rather less attention has been paid to what students might want to say, or what purposes and values they attach to political debate and civic participation. The current political climate is, to put it mildly, grim as hell – raucous, accusatory, significantly short on empathy and compassion and, worst of all, not producing significant improvements in young people’s lives.

    Given that context, it might not be all that surprising that most students want at least one political party banned from campus – it was Reform topping the poll that caught the headlines last week, but I find more significant that only 18 per cent of students said that no political party should be banned from campus. Could it be that students don’t feel the parties have all that much to offer them?

    The winds are changing

    This is a deeply pertinent question for contemporary student leaders, who frequently find themselves in the cross-fire of these debates.

    Speaking to student leaders about free speech policy, particularly in the wake of the Office for Students’ intervention at the University of Sussex, there’s a growing challenge for institutions to confidently be a political actor on campus. And for students there is a real sense that their attitudes to politics at university are changing.

    On my regular briefing calls with student unions I run through the top ten things happening in policy that month, and recently there’s been a steady influx of questions about what happens when students get frustrated that there’s a new student society on campus that they ideologically disagree with.

    At one students’ union a group of Reform supporting students filed to be a registered SU society following the US election in 2024. Even if the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act wasn’t around, the SU would still be required to register and ratify the society – the only difference now is it’s clearer they must follow the joint free speech code with the university. Students signed petitions and directed their anger at the SU for ratifying the society in the first place and any subsequent events held by ReformSoc were met with student protest (also protected under the terms of the new legislation).

    The protests centered around the events being a threat to safety on campus, fearing events would border on hate speech and that the SU no longer reflected or represented them. Students that protested likely support abstract principles of free speech, yet these don’t neatly map onto what they fear may be its results. The ratification and later protests did the rounds on social media and got the attention of the public at which point a rush of unpleasant comments and attacks headed towards the SU.

    In one sense all this is as it should be – the society was enabled to exist, those who wanted to protest did so – but it’s doubtful that much actual debate took place, or that many minds were changed. The SU leaders involved were left trying desperately to stick to the law, facilitate student political engagement, keep the peace, and protect themselves from increasingly vicious attacks for doing so.

    Statements and action about EDI, decolonisation or the recent trans ruling are wrapped up in a new sense of nervousness that will frustrate both ends of the student political spectrum, albeit in different ways. I did enjoy speaking to one team who told me the frustration from students about ReformSocs has led them to put on more EDI based events in the hope more students keep coming, find their safe spaces and recognise that the campus still represents them.

    Making it happen

    All this is contributing to a real tension when it comes to understanding how SUs can best support students and student leaders to become political actors, and agentive citizens. Both the toxicity of the current political environment and the regulations that are intended to try to lay down some principles to manage it, are difficult for student leaders to navigate.

    Now that the free speech legislation is in force, the next debate needs to be about how we get to a space where universities and SUs are agents of civic and political action which isn’t seen exclusively through the lens of “woke” or even the classical liberal position – but something more directly applicable to students’ lived experience of engaging with these tricky political issues.

    There needs to be a deeper understanding and discussion within the student movement, supported by institutions, of the importance of having a plurality of ideas on campus and recognition of the particularities of the current political moment. For university to be both a safe space and also a space to be challenged, the mode of challenge needs to be tailored to the issues and the context.

    In the conversations I’ve had there’s a willingness to try and convert the protest energy into political action, to push SUs to continue to be political agents and welcoming of debate, developing students’ civic identities. I’d love to see debates about free speech reframed as an exciting opportunity, something which already allows diverse student thought, often through student societies. But just sticking to the rules and principles won’t deliver this – we need to move the conversation to the practicalities of making this happen.

    Source link

  • Apparently, Civil Discourse Requires a Bachelor’s Degree

    Apparently, Civil Discourse Requires a Bachelor’s Degree

    I have to hand it to CC Daily; its article on the recent round of FIPSE grants had a killer closing sentence.

    The recent round of grants from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education had focus areas in AI, accreditation and civil discourse. As CC Daily succinctly noted, “No community colleges received awards in the civil discourse category.”

    None. Not one, out of over 1,000 institutions across the country. Zero.

    I know it’s not for lack of applications.

    They were well represented among the awards focused on workforce training but were shut out when it came to addressing larger social issues.

    To be fair, FIPSE wasn’t alone in ignoring community colleges. As Karen Stout pointed out this weekend, The Chronicle’s quarter-century forecast drew on 50 experts from across higher education to talk about emerging trends; only one was from a community college. We have over 40 percent of the students in the country, but received 2 percent of the attention. Two is greater than zero, granted, but come on.

    Who is at the table will affect what gets considered important. From the Chronicle group, for instance, you wouldn’t know that dual enrollment has quietly but steadily redefined the barriers between secondary and postsecondary education around the country and that the funding structures and academic policies in many states (cough Pennsylvania cough) haven’t kept up. That has consequences in myriad ways, ranging from faculty credential requirements to residency-based tuition to the impact on grad school applications for students who got B’s at age 14. Business models based on a previous reality struggle under the emerging one. That’s invisible to people at think tanks who focus on disciplining “the woke left,” but it’s real and it matters.

    The civil discourse piece was just the latest in a long line of reminders that many policymakers see community colleges as workforce training centers and nothing else. Higher education, in their view, belongs to those who can afford it; our job is to produce skilled proles who will produce profit, do what they’re told and stay quiet.

    Well, no. Community colleges are, among other things, colleges; they embody the belief that nothing is too aspirational for anybody, including people from lower-income backgrounds. Workforce training is a key component of the mission, but it isn’t the entire mission—and it shouldn’t be. Our students have just as much dignity, humanity and perspective as anyone else’s.

    Last week I had the opportunity to see a new slate of officers of student government get sworn in. It’s always a happy occasion. Over the course of my career, though, I’ve seen the tone of those events shift. Twenty years ago, I heard students talk about making a difference. Ten years ago, I heard them talk about building their résumés. Now I hear them talk about making friends. That very human need for connection isn’t unique to four-year schools. Community colleges are, among other things, places where people from different backgrounds interact on equal footing, often for the first time. It’s where students learn to practice civil discourse on the ground. Interactions like those are crucial parts of educating a citizenry. That’s part of our mission, and I offer it without apology.

    An old saying suggests that if you aren’t at the table, you’re on the menu. Community colleges deserve to be at the table. When we aren’t, the entire conversation is distorted.

    Source link

  • Public Trust Requires Both Reform and Defense

    Public Trust Requires Both Reform and Defense

    To the editor:

    We are grateful to Inside Higher Ed editor in chief Sara Custer in her recent column “Higher Ed Faces Competing Visions for Its Future” (Dec. 18, 2025) for mentioning Advancing Public Trust in Higher Education, the initiative we co-direct at the American Association of Colleges and Universities. We write to expand upon Custer’s review of the emerging responses to the trust problem and to clarify what our initiative is advocating and doing to invigorate public trust.

    Higher ed cannot restore public trust in colleges and universities unless the sector reckons in a clear-eyed fashion with the causes of the current crisis. Simply put, the fundamental problem is that when the sector or its individual institutions draw public criticism, we are unable either to make quick changes in response, to explain compellingly why we should not do so, or to redirect public attention effectively toward the overall value and purpose of our work. Under increased scrutiny from the public and government alike, that paralysis is a recipe for a disastrous decline in public trust.

    Solving this crisis will require a multipronged approach that balances internal reform—although not along the lines of the administration’s ill-fated Compact—with better communication and collective defense strategies. Higher education must become better and nimbler at making changes that already have wide support but are held back by parochial interests; better at relentlessly prioritizing engagement with local communities; and better at offering a meaningful welcome to all students, including those with conservative views and others who feel alienated from our institutions. We also need to be better at mounting a vigorous and coordinated sectorwide defense when we are in the right, and at communicating our value and purpose clearly and effectively so that the public can put things into context when we inevitably make mistakes.

    Our view is that internal reform, improved communication, and better defense are inseparable parts of a whole; higher education will not regain public trust, or reestablish productive partnerships with the government and our communities, unless we pursue all three goals simultaneously. Our vision is of a sector that is agile, responsive, invitational, humble and trusted to generate new knowledge and transform students’ lives. If colleges and universities act smartly and collectively, we believe that vision is within reach.

    We look forward to sharing more specifics about our approach with Inside Higher Ed’s readers over the coming months.

    Jeremy C. Young is Senior Advisor for Strategic Initiatives, and Kathryn Enke is Vice President for Leadership and Strategy, at the American Association of Colleges and Universities

    Source link

  • Disability equality in higher education requires a joined-up and co-created approach

    Disability equality in higher education requires a joined-up and co-created approach

    Despite more than two decades of legislation to establish equality in education for disabled and or diverse learners, disabled students continue to tell us that university can feel like an obstacle course.

    The barriers are rarely spectacular, they are cumulative. A lecture uploaded without captions here, a placement form that cannot be read by a screen reader there, an adjustment agreed in one department but lost somewhere between a registry system and a module leader’s inbox. Committed staff can be found everywhere, but problematic patterns remain unyielding.

    That is the core problem our Office for Students-funded project sets out to address: in a mass, complex, data-driven sector, local goodwill and isolated fixes do not add up to equality. The numbers matter, as more students are disclosing disability than ever before, across every discipline and level of study.

    Behind those patterns sit familiar barriers: inaccessible learning environments and systems; opaque, slow, or inconsistent processes; siloed responsibilities between academic departments and student services; and a tendency to treat reasonable adjustments as individual fixes rather than signs of institutional design problems. Disabled-led organisations such as Disabled Students UK (DSUK) and Disability Rights UK (DRUK) have been clear in stating that meaningful change needs meaningful collaboration with disabled people, not consultation after the fact.

    So why has the sector not moved faster? Because the challenge, as our team have discovered, is ecological not episodic. Individual good practices exist, but without a joined-up approach or student leadership they do not add up to consistent or sustained equality.

    Policy and case law have been clear for years about duties to make reasonable adjustments. Yet the practical experience of securing those adjustments and seeing them work consistently, module by module and term by term, lags behind. One reason is structural: student services and academic departments often own different parts of the reasonable adjustment pathway, with digital systems, estates, timetabling and external partners (for example placement providers) making decisions that affect implementation.

    When responsibilities are split, accountability can be blurred; when data is siloed, feedback loops break down; when workloads bite, the exception becomes normalised. Our conclusion, based on lived experience, sector evidence and our own work with institutions, is that we have been treating an ecosystem problem with point solutions.

    An ecological approach

    When considering where disability equality and inequality are located in HE, the spaces, places and experiences we think of are shaped by relationships and meeting points between students, staff, timetables, curricula, estates, timetabling, assessment regulations, digital platforms, suppliers, and external points such as placement providers, funding assessors and employers.

    If you change one meeting point, the effects are felt across the whole system, and if meeting points are not communicating or working in joined up ways, they experience limited success in their combined aims and objectives. In this case the equitable access, success and progression of disabled students in HE.

    The ecological approach we are developing calls for joined up practices connecting actors, including students, programme teams, services, registry, estates, IT, and external partners to co-diagnose problems and co-design solutions. It works across timescales, from “use tomorrow” fixes (such as alternative formats) to structural shifts (such as assessment policy and data flows). It is transparent and makes accountability visible, sharing data, and providing feedback loops highlighting whether adjustments are timely, effective and equitable. Fundamentally, it centres disabled leadership, qualifying disabled students and staff as co-leaders, users and evaluators throughout, not just consultees.

    Three steps for equitable university experiences

    Our work is taking three key steps in developing this ecological model for the sector. First, we are mapping where and why barriers persist in the journey from a student disclosing a need to an adjustment being delivered in their teaching context.

    That journey is seldom linear. It crosses multiple systems, is hands-offs, and it often requires invisible labour by students themselves to keep things moving. We are documenting these routes with our partners, leading disabled people organisations DSUK and DRUK, so we can co-design fixes that survive real institutional conditions. We are doing this by collecting accounts and experiences through surveys and workshops with disabled students, student services and academics.

    Second, we are co-creating continuing professional development that address the needs of module leaders, personal tutors, programme leads, placement coordinators, timetablers, disability advisers and frontline advisers. The content pairs short, practical scenarios with data on timeliness and effectiveness, and prompts teams to move repeated adjustments into course design. By centring lived experience, we are producing “use-tomorrow” learning that is also a lever for upstream redesign.

    Third, we are writing university guidelines on reasonable adjustments that bring together responsibilities, timeframes and escalation routes. This is a working pathway, visible to students and staff alike, with shared ownership across academic and professional teams. These resources will be published openly on an OfS-sourced platform to support sector-wide take-up and long-term evaluation.

    Why a joined-up and co-created approach matters

    There is no shortage of “good practice” lists in the sector. What we do not yet have is a user-led, sector-ready pathway that integrates roles, systems and timescales. Gibson’s user-informed, user-led, user-evaluated approach provides the model of practice behind this project’s work. With its emphasis on partnership, user-leadership and co-creation the model places disabled students and lived expertise at the core and front of the project in design, output and impact evaluation.

    This approach reframes the idea of “reasonable”. A reasonable adjustment becomes not only something that can be delivered for an individual, but a signal about programme design and institutional capability. If the same adjustment is needed across a cohort, the reasonable response is to redesign. Staff recognise this logic; many are already pulling in that direction. The ecological approach provides them with a shared language, shared tools and shared accountability.

    On that basis, these are our recommendations for the sector:

    • Swap exceptions for design. Treat repeated adjustments as prompts to redesign curricula, assessments and processes so the need becomes built-in, not bolted on.
    • Create a single visible pathway. Publish a plain-English route, co-owned by departments and services, for securing, implementing and reviewing reasonable adjustments, with clear timeframes and escalation.
    • Close the loop with students. Ask disabled students if support was timely and effective, publish the actions you take, and track changes using measures that matter locally (as well as NSS/APP indicators).

    A student’s experience should not depend on which member of staff opens their email. In an inclusive ecology, the pathway is transparent and defensible, the systems talk to each other; the same student does not have to re-explain across every module; adjustments are recorded, enacted and reviewed; and the lessons from individual cases migrate into programme-level design.

    Our project aims to connect these practices into a pathway any provider can follow, and all the resources will be freely available for sector-wide use on an OfS-hosted platform.

    The authors would also like to thank Kathrin Paal, Chloe Webster-Harris, Lucy Bartlett, Arianwen Fox, Lottie Atton, Elena Brake, and Tyrell King for their contributions.

    Source link

  • Texas A&M Requires Approval for Courses That “Advocate” Certain Ideologies

    Texas A&M Requires Approval for Courses That “Advocate” Certain Ideologies

    Courses that “advocate race or gender ideology, sexual orientation, or gender identity” now require presidential approval at Texas A&M system campuses, the system Board of Regents decided Thursday.

    Faculty members and external advocacy groups say the new rules violate academic freedom, and for many professors, questions remain about how the policies will be implemented and enforced. Approved in a unanimous vote after a lengthy public comment period, the policy changes fit a pattern of censorship at Texas A&M that escalated after a video of a student challenging an instructor about a lesson on gender identity went viral, leading to the instructor’s firing and the resignation of then-president Mark Welsh.

    Dan Braaten, an associate professor of political science at Texas A&M San Antonio and president of the campus American Association of University Professors chapter, said he was shocked “at the egregiousness” of the policies, but not surprised by them.

    “Faculty are extremely worried,” Braaten said. “They’re wondering, can they teach the classes they’re scheduled to teach in the spring? Who’s going to be looking at their syllabi? … Is the president of each A&M university going to have to approve every syllabus? Are there penalties for any of this? It’s just a complete … serious violation of academic freedom.”

    The board approved the new rules as revisions to existing system policies. A policy on “Civil Rights Protections and Compliance” will be amended to state that “no system academic course will advocate race or gender ideology, sexual orientation, or gender identity unless the course is approved by the member CEO.” It will also define “gender ideology” as “a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex.”

    Similarly, “race ideology” is defined as “a concept that attempts to shame a particular race or ethnicity, accuse them of being oppressors in a racial hierarchy or conspiracy, ascribe to them less value as contributors to society and public discourse because of their race or ethnicity, or assign them intrinsic guilt based on the actions of their presumed ancestors or relatives in other areas of the world. This also includes course content that promotes activism on issues related to race or ethnicity, rather than academic instruction.”

    Teaching Versus Advocacy

    A previous version of the revision proposed that no system academic course will “teach” race or gender ideology, but the verb was changed to “advocate” before the policies were presented formally to the full board. It’s unclear how the system will differentiate between advocacy and regular instruction on these topics. Representatives for the board on Wednesday declined to comment on the policies ahead of the board vote. They did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions after the policies were approved.

    A second policy on “Academic Freedom, Responsibility and Tenure” previously stated that “each faculty member is entitled to full freedom in the classroom in discussing the subject that the faculty member teaches, but a faculty member should not introduce a controversial matter that has no relation to the classroom subject.” The approved amendment adds that faculty members may not “teach material that is inconsistent with the approved syllabus for the course.”

    In a partially redacted Nov. 10 email obtained by Inside Higher Ed, a Texas A&M faculty leader said that administrators at several universities were already discussing implementation plans ahead of the board vote. An administrator also told the faculty leader that the changes to the policy would not likely lead to a formal syllabus-approval process and instead are intended to keep course content aligned with learning outcomes.

    The board received 142 written comments ahead of Thursday’s vote, and eight faculty members spoke out against the policy changes during the meeting’s public comment period. Several of them also called for Melissa McCoul, the professor fired in September, to be reinstated.

    “This is not university-level education, it is cruelty and political indoctrination in wolf’s clothing,” said Leonard Bright, a professor of government and public service and president of the Texas A&M College Station AAUP chapter. “I would need to tell my students that ‘What you came here to learn, I’m unable to tell you, because I’m restricted to tell you that information, even though such knowledge is available at every major university in this world.’”

    Sonia Hernandez, a liberal arts professor who teaches about Latin American history, shared a past example that highlighted the pitfalls of the new policies.

    “I had a student once who took issue with my discussion of the importance of military history. He was against war and felt strongly about war’s damaging effects on society, yet it was full academic freedom—not cherry-picking of topics, not advocacy, not ideology—that allowed me to share research on the intersections of war and identity with my class,” Hernandez said.

    Two faculty members—finance professor Adam Kolasinski and biomedical engineering professor John Criscione—spoke in favor of the policy changes.

    “I don’t think somebody should be able to say that Germans born two generations after the Holocaust somehow bear guilt for the Holocaust, because that’s really what’s being prohibited here,” Kolasinski said. “My colleagues seem to think that the policy says something it doesn’t.” Kolasinski also suggested the board change the language back from “advocate” to “teach.”

    AAUP president Todd Wolfson urged the board to reject the proposed policy changes in a statement Tuesday. So did Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the AAUP, which includes faculty at Texas A&M campuses.

    “By considering these policy changes, the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents is telling faculty, ‘Shut up and teach—and we’ll tell you what to teach,’” Evans said in the statement. “This language and the censorship it imposes will cause irreparable harm to the reputation of the university, and impede faculty and students from their main mission on campus: to teach, learn, think critically, and create and share new knowledge.”

    In a Monday statement, FIRE officials wrote, “Hiring professors with PhDs is meaningless if administrators are the ones deciding what gets taught … Faculty would need permission to teach students about not just modern controversies, but also civil rights, the Civil War, or even ancient Greek comedies. This is not just bad policy. It invites unlawful censorship, chills academic freedom, and undermines the core purpose of a university. Faculty will start asking not ‘Is this accurate?’ but ‘Will this get me in trouble?’ That’s not education, it’s risk management.”

    AI-Driven Course Review

    Also on Thursday, the board discussed a detailed, systemwide review of all courses using an artificial intelligence–driven process. The system has already piloted the review process at its Tarleton State University campus, where most of the courses that were flagged are housed in the College of Education, which includes the sociology and psychology departments, the Nov. 10 email from a faculty leader stated. Board members said they intend to complete the course review regularly, as often as once per semester.

    “The Texas A&M system is stepping up first, setting the model that others will follow,” Regent Sam Torn said about the course review at Thursday’s meeting.

    The system will also use EthicsPoint, an online system that will allow students to report inaccurate, misleading or inappropriate course content that diverges from the course descriptions. System staff will be alerted when a student submits an EthicsPoint complaint, and if the complaint is determined to be valid, it will be passed along to the relevant university.

    Source link

  • A joined up post-16 system requires system-level thinking combined with local action

    A joined up post-16 system requires system-level thinking combined with local action

    There have been so many conversations and speculations and recommendations aired about the forthcoming post-16 skills and education white paper that you’d be forgiven for thinking it already had been published months ago.

    But no, it’s expected this week some time – possibly as early as Monday – and so for everyone’s sanity it’s worth rehearsing some of the framing drivers and intentions behind it, clearing the deck before the thing finally arrives and we start digesting the policy detail.

    The policy ambition is clear: a coherent and coordinated post-16 “tertiary” sector in England, that offers viable pathways to young people and adult learners through the various levels of education and into employment, contributing to economic growth through providing the skilled individuals the country needs.

    The political challenge is also real: with Reform snapping at Labour’s heels, the belief that the UK can “grow its own” skills, and offer opportunity and the prospect of economic security to its young people across the country must become embedded in the national psyche if the government is to see off the threat.

    The politics and policy combine in the Prime Minister’s announcement at Labour Party Conference of an eye-catching new target for two thirds of young people to participate in some form of higher-level learning. That positions next week’s white paper as a longer term systemic shift rather than, say, a strategy for tackling youth unemployment in this parliament – though it’s clear there is also an ambition for the two to go hand in hand, with skills policy now sitting across both DfE and DWP.

    Insert tab a into slot b

    The aspiration to achieve a more joined up and functioning system is laudable – in the best of all possible worlds steering a middle course between the worst excesses and predatory behaviours of the free market, and an overly controlling hand from Whitehall. But the more you try to unpick what’s happening right now, the more you see how fragmented the current “system” is, with incentives and accountabilities all over the place. That’s why you can have brilliant FE and HE institutions delivering life-changing education opportunities, at the same time as the system as a whole seems to be grinding its gears.

    Last week, a report from the Association of Colleges and Universities UK Delivering a joined-up post-16 skills system showcased some of the really great regional collaborations already in place between FE colleges and universities, and also set out some of the barriers to collaboration including financial pressures causing different providers to chase the same students in the same subjects rather than strategically differentiating their offer; and different regulatory and student finance systems for different kinds of learners and qualifications creating complexity in the system.

    But it’s not only about the willingness and capability of different kinds of provider to coordinate with each other. It’s about the perennial urge of policymakers to tinker with qualifications and set up new kinds of provider creating additional complexity – and the complicating role of private training and HE provision operating “close to market” which can have a distorting effect on what “public” institutions are able to offer. It’s about the lack of join-up even within government departments, never mind across them. It’s also about the pervasiveness of the cultural dichotomy (and hierarchy) between perceptions of white-collar/professional and blue-collar/manual work, and the ill-informed class distinctions and capability-based assumptions underpinning them.

    Some of this fragmentation can be addressed through system-wide harmonisation – such as the intent through the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) to implement one system of funding for all level 4–6 courses, and bringing all courses in that group under the regulatory purview of the Office for Students. AoC and UUK have also identified a number of areas where potential overlaps could be resolved through system-wide coordination: between OfS, Skills England, and mayoral strategic authorities; between the LLE and the Growth and Skills Levy; and between local skills improvement plans and the (national) industrial strategy. It would be odd indeed if the white paper did not make provision for this kind of coordination.

    But even with efforts to coordinate and harmonise, in any system there is naturally occurring variation – in how employers in different industries are thinking about, reporting, and investing in skills, and at what levels, in the expectations and tolerance of different prospective students for study load, learning environment, scale of the costs of learning, and support needs, and in the relationship between a place, its economy and its people. The implications of those variations are best understood by the people who are closest to the problem.

    The future is emergent

    Complex systems have emergent properties, ie the stuff that happens because lots of actors responded to the world as they saw it but that could not necessarily have been predicted. Policy is always generating unforeseen outcomes. And it doesn’t matter how many data wonks and uber-brains you have in the Civil Service, they’ll still not be able to plot every possible outcome as any given policy intervention works its way through the system.

    So for a system to work you need good quality feedback loops in which insight arrives in a timely way on the desks of responsible actors who have the capability, opportunity and motivation to adapt in light of them. In the post-16 system that’s about education and civic leaders being really good at listening to their students, their communities and to employers – and investing in quality in civic leadership (and identifying and ejecting bad apples) should be one of the ways that a post-16 skills system can be made to work.

    But good leaders need to be afforded the opportunity to decide what their response will be to the specifics of the needs they have identified and be trusted, to some degree, to act in the public interest. So from a Whitehall perspective the question the white paper needs to answer is not only how the different bits of the system ought to join up, but whether the people who are instrumental in making it work themselves have the skills, information and flexibility to take action when it inevitably doesn’t.

    Source link

  • OfS’ understanding of the student interest requires improvement

    OfS’ understanding of the student interest requires improvement

    When the Office for Students’ (OfS) proposals for a new quality assessment system for England appeared in the inbox, I happened to be on a lunchbreak from delivering training at a students’ union.

    My own jaw had hit the floor several times during my initial skim of its 101 pages – and so to test the validity of my initial reactions, I attempted to explain, in good faith, the emerging system to the student leaders who had reappeared for the afternoon.

    Having explained that the regulator was hoping to provide students with a “clear view of the quality of teaching and learning” at the university, their first confusion was tied up in the idea that this was even possible in a university with 25,000 students and hundreds of degree courses.

    They’d assumed that some sort of dashboard might be produced that would help students differentiate between at least departments if not courses. When I explained that the “view” would largely be in the form of a single “medal” of Gold, Silver, Bronze or Requires improvement for the whole university, I was met with confusion.

    We’d spent some time before the break discussing the postgraduate student experience – including poor induction for international students, the lack of a policy on supervision for PGTs, and the isolation that PGRs had fed into the SU’s strategy exercise.

    When I explained that OfS was planning to introduce a PGT NSS in 2028 and then use that data in the TEF from 2030-31 – such that their university might not have the data taken into account until 2032-33 – I was met with derision. When I explained that PGRs may be incorporated from 2030–31 onwards, I was met with scorn.

    Keen to know how students might feed in, one officer asked how their views would be taken into account. I explained that as well as the NSS, the SU would have the option to create a written submission to provide contextual insight into the numbers. When one of them observed that “being honest in that will be a challenge given student numbers are falling and so is the SU’s funding”, the union’s voice coordinator (who’d been involved in the 2023 exercise) in the corner offered a wry smile.

    One of the officers – who’d had a rewarding time at the university pretty much despite their actual course – wanted to know if the system was going to tackle students like them not really feeling like they’d learned anything during their degree. Given the proposals’ intention to drop educational gain altogether, I moved on at this point. Young people have had enough of being let down.

    I’m not at home in my own home

    Back in February, you might recall that OfS published a summary of a programme of polling and focus groups that it had undertaken to understand what students wanted and needed from their higher education – and the extent to which they were getting it.

    At roughly the same time, it published proposals for a new initial Condition C5: Treating students fairly, to apply initially to newly registered providers, which drew on that research.

    As well as issues it had identified with things like contractual provisions, hidden costs and withdrawn offers, it was particularly concerned with the risk that students may take a decision about what and where to study based on false, misleading or exaggerated information.

    OfS’ own research into the Teaching Excellence Framework 2023 signals one of the culprits for that misleading. Polling by Savanta in April and May 2024, and follow-up focus groups with prospective undergraduates over the summer both showed that applicants consistently described TEF outcomes as too broad to be of real use for their specific course decisions.

    They wanted clarity about employability rates, continuation statistics, and job placements – but what they got instead was a single provider-wide badge. Many struggled to see meaningful differences between Gold and Silver, or to reconcile how radically different providers could both hold Gold.

    The evidence also showed that while a Gold award could reassure applicants, more than one in five students aware of their provider’s TEF rating disagreed that it was a fair reflection of their own experience. That credibility gap matters.

    If the TEF continues to offer a single label for an entire university, with data that are both dated and aggregated, there is a clear danger that students will once again be misled – this time not by hidden costs or unfair contracts, but by the regulatory tool that is supposed to help them make informed choices.

    You don’t know what I’m feeling

    Absolutely central to the TEF will remain results of the National Student Survey (NSS).

    OfS says that’s because “the NSS remains the only consistently collected, UK-wide dataset that directly captures students’ views on their teaching, learning, and academic support,” and because “its long-running use provides reliable benchmarked data which allows for meaningful comparison across providers and trends over time.”

    It stresses that the survey provides an important “direct line to student perceptions,” which balances outcomes data and adds depth to panel judgements. In other words, the NSS is positioned as an indispensable barometer of student experience in a system that otherwise leans heavily on outcomes.

    But set aside the fact that it surveys only those who make it to the final year of a full undergraduate degree. The NSS doesn’t ask whether students felt their course content was up to date with current scholarship and professional practice, or whether learning outcomes were coherent and built systematically across modules and years — both central expectations under B1 (Academic experience).

    It doesn’t check whether students received targeted support to close knowledge or skills gaps, or whether they were given clear help to avoid academic misconduct through essay planning, referencing, and understanding rules – requirements spelled out in the guidance to B2 (Resources, support and engagement). It also misses whether students were confident that staff were able to teach effectively online, and whether the learning environment – including hardware, software, internet reliability, and access to study spaces – actually enabled them to learn. Again, explicit in B2, but invisible in the survey.

    On assessment, the NSS asks about clarity, fairness, and usefulness of feedback, but it doesn’t cover whether assessment methods really tested what students had been taught, whether tasks felt valid for measuring the intended outcomes, or whether students believed their assessments prepared them for professional standards. Yet B4 (Assessment and awards) requires assessments to be valid and reliable, moderated, and robust against misconduct – areas NSS perceptions can’t evidence.

    I could go on. The survey provides snapshots of the learning experience but leaves out important perception checks on the coherence, currency, integrity, and fitness-for-purpose of teaching and learning, which the B conditions (and students) expect providers to secure.

    And crucially, OfS has chosen not to use the NSS questions on organisation and management in the future TEF at all. That’s despite its own 2025 press release highlighting it as one of the weakest-performing themes in the sector – just 78.5 per cent of students responded positively – and pointing out that disabled students in particular reported significantly worse experiences than their peers.

    OfS said then that “institutions across the sector could be doing more to ensure disabled students are getting the high quality higher education experience they are entitled to,” and noted that the gap between disabled and non-disabled students was growing in organisation and management. In other words, not only is the NSS not fit for purpose, OfS’ intended use of it isn’t either.

    I followed the voice, you gave to me

    In the 2023 iteration of the TEF, the independent student submission was supposed to be one of the most exciting innovations. It was billed as a crucial opportunity for providers’ students to tell their own story – not mediated through NSS data or provider spin, but directly and independently. In OfS’ words, the student submission provided “additional insights” that would strengthen the panel’s ability to judge whether teaching and learning really were excellent.

    In this consultation, OfS says it wants to “retain the option of student input,” but with tweaks. The headline change is that the student submission would no longer need to cover “student outcomes” – an area that SUs often struggled with given the technicalities of data and the lack of obvious levers for student involvement.

    On the surface, that looks like a kindness – but scratch beneath the surface, and it’s a red flag. Part of the point of Condition B2.2b is that providers must take all reasonable steps to ensure effective engagement with each cohort of students so that “those students succeed in and beyond higher education.”

    If students’ unions feel unable to comment on how the wider student experience enables (or obstructs) student success and progression, that’s not a reason to delete it from the student submission. It’s a sign that something is wrong with the way providers involve students in what’s done to understand and shape outcomes.

    The trouble is that the light touch response ignores the depth of feedback it has already commissioned and received. Both the IFF evaluation of TEF 2023 and OfS’ own survey of student contacts documented the serious problems that student reps and students’ unions faced.

    They said the submission window was far too short – dropping guidance in October, demanding a January deadline, colliding with elections, holidays, and strikes. They said the guidance was late, vague, inaccessible, and offered no examples. They said the template was too broad to be useful. They said the burden on small and under-resourced SUs was overwhelming, and even large ones had to divert staff time away from core activity.

    They described barriers to data access – patchy dashboards, GDPR excuses, lack of analytical support. They noted that almost a third didn’t feel fully free to say what they wanted, with some monitored by staff while writing. And they told OfS that the short, high-stakes process created self-censorship, strained relationships, and duplication without impact.

    The consultation documents brush most of that aside. Little in the proposals tackles the resourcing, timing, independence, or data access problems that students actually raised.

    I’m not at home in my own home

    OfS also proposes to commission “alternative forms of evidence” – like focus groups or online meetings – where students aren’t able to produce a written submission. The regulator’s claim is that this will reduce burden, increase consistency, and make it easier to secure independent student views.

    The focus group idea is especially odd. Student representatives’ main complaint wasn’t that they couldn’t find the words – it was that they lacked the time, resource, support, and independence to tell the truth. Running a one-off OfS focus group with a handful of students doesn’t solve that. It actively sidesteps the standard in B2 and the DAPs rules on embedding students in governance and representation structures.

    If a student body struggles to marshal the evidence and write the submission, the answer should be to ask whether the provider is genuinely complying with the regulatory conditions on student engagement. Farming the job out to OfS-run focus groups allows providers with weak student partnership arrangements to escape scrutiny – precisely the opposite of what the student submission was designed to do.

    The point is that the quality of a student submission is not just a “nice to have” extra insight for the TEF panel. It is, in itself, evidence of whether a provider is complying with Condition B2. It requires providers to take all reasonable steps to ensure effective engagement with each cohort of students, and says students should make an effective contribution to academic governance.

    If students can’t access data, don’t have the collective capacity to contribute, or are cowed into self-censorship, that is not just a TEF design flaw – it is B2 evidence of non-compliance. The fact that OfS has never linked student submission struggles to B2 is bizarre. Instead of drawing on the submissions as intelligence about engagement, the regulator has treated them as optional extras.

    The refusal to make that link is even stranger when compared to what came before. Under the old QAA Institutional Review process, the student written submission was long-established, resourced, and formative. SUs had months to prepare, could share drafts, and had the time and support to work with managers on solutions before a review team arrived. It meant students could be honest without the immediate risk of reputational harm, and providers had a chance to act before being judged.

    TEF 2023 was summative from the start, rushed and high-stakes, with no requirement on providers to demonstrate they had acted on feedback. The QAA model was designed with SUs and built around partnership – the TEF model was imposed by OfS and designed around panel efficiency. OfS has learned little from the feedback from those who submitted.

    But now I’ve gotta find my own

    While I’m on the subject of learning, we should finally consider how far the proposals have drifted from the lessons of Dame Shirley Pearce’s review. Back in 2019, her panel made a point of recording what students had said loud and clear – the lack of learning gain in TEF was a fundamental flaw.

    In fact, educational gain was the single most commonly requested addition to the framework, championed by students and their representatives who argued that without it, TEF risked reducing success to continuation and jobs.

    Students told the review they wanted a system that showed whether higher education was really developing their knowledge, skills, and personal growth. They wanted recognition of the confidence, resilience, and intellectual development that are as much the point of university as a payslip.

    Pearce’s panel agreed, recommending that Educational Gains should become a fourth formal aspect of TEF, encompassing both academic achievement and personal development. Crucially, the absence of a perfect national measure was not seen as a reason to ignore the issue. Providers, the panel said, should articulate their own ambitions and evidence of gain, in line with their mission, because failing to even try left a gaping hole at the heart of quality assessment.

    Fast forward to now, and OfS is proposing to abandon the concept entirely. To students and SUs who have been told for years that their views shape regulation, the move is a slap in the face. A regulator that once promised to capture the full richness of the student experience is now narrowing the lens to what can be benchmarked in spreadsheets. The result is a framework that tells students almost nothing about what they most want to know – whether their education will help them grow.

    You see the same lack of learning in the handling of extracurricular and co-curricular activity. For students, societies, volunteering, placements, and cocurricular opportunities are not optional extras but integral to how they build belonging, develop skills, and prepare for life beyond university. Access to these opportunities feature heavily in the Access and Participation Risk Register precisely because they matter to student success and because they’re a part of the educational offer in and of themselves.

    But in TEF 2023 OfS tied itself in knots over whether they “count” — at times allowing them in if narrowly framed as “educational”, at other times excluding them altogether. To students who know how much they learn outside of the lecture theatre, the distinction looked absurd. Now the killing off of educational gain excludes them all together.

    You should have listened

    Taken together, OfS has delivered a masterclass in demonstrating how little it has learned from students. As a result, the body that once promised to put student voice at the centre of regulation is in danger of constructing a TEF that is both incomplete and actively misleading.

    It’s a running theme – more evidence that OfS is not interested enough in genuinely empowering students. If students don’t know what they can, should, or could expect from their education – because the standards are vague, the metrics are aggregated, and the judgements are opaque – then their representatives won’t know either. And if their reps don’t know, their students’ union can’t effectively advocate for change.

    When the only judgements against standards that OfS is interested in come from OfS itself, delivered through a very narrow funnel of risk-based regulation, that funnel inevitably gets choked off through appeals to “reduced burden” and aggregated medals that tell students nothing meaningful about their actual course or experience. The result is a system that talks about student voice while systematically disempowering the very students it claims to serve.

    In the consultation, OfS says that it wants its new quality system to be recognised as compliant with the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG), which would in time allow it to seek membership of the European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR). That’s important for providers with international partnerships and recruitment ambitions, and for students given that ESG recognition underpins trust, mobility, and recognition across the European Higher Education Area.

    But OfS’ conditions don’t require co-design of the quality assurance framework itself, nor proof that student views shape outcomes. Its proposals expand student assessor roles in the TEF, but don’t guarantee systematic involvement in all external reviews or transparency of outcomes – both central to ESG. And as the ongoing QA-FIT project and ESU have argued, the next revision of the ESG is likely to push student engagement further, emphasising co-creation, culture, and demonstrable impact.

    If it does apply for EQAR recognition, our European peers will surely notice what English students already know – the gap between OfS’ rhetoric on student partnership and the reality of its actual understanding and actions is becoming impossible to ignore.

    When I told those student officers back on campus that their university would be spending £25,000 of their student fee income every time it has to take part in the exercise, their anger was palpable. When I added that according to the new OfS chair, Silver and Gold might enable higher fees, while Bronze or “Requires Improvement” might cap or further reduce their student numbers, they didn’t actually believe me.

    The student interest? Hardly.

    Source link

  • Supporting neurodiverse learners requires more than accommodation: It demands systemic change

    Supporting neurodiverse learners requires more than accommodation: It demands systemic change

    Key points:

    Approximately 1 in 5 children in the United States are estimated to be neurodivergent, representing a spectrum of learning and thinking differences such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and more. These children experience the world in unique and valuable ways, but too often, our education systems fail to recognize or nurture their potential. In an already challenging educational landscape, where studies show a growing lack of school readiness nationwide, it is more important than ever to ensure that neurodivergent young learners receive the resources and support they need to succeed.

    Early support and intervention

    As President and CEO of Collaborative for Children, I have personally seen the impact that high-quality early childhood education can have on a child’s trajectory. Birth to age five is the most critical window for brain development, laying the foundation for lifelong learning, behavior, and health. However, many children are entering their academic years without the basic skills needed to flourish. For neurodivergent children, who often need tailored approaches to learning, the gap is even wider.

    Research indicates that early intervention, initiated within the first three years of life, can significantly enhance outcomes for neurodivergent children. Children who receive individualized support are more likely to develop stronger language, problem-solving, and social skills. These gains not only help in the classroom but can also lead to higher self-confidence, better relationships and improved well-being into adulthood.

    The Collaborative for Children difference

    Collaborative for Children in Houston focuses on early childhood education and is committed to creating inclusive environments where all children can thrive. In Houston, we have established 125 Centers of Excellence within our early childhood learning network. The Centers of Excellence program helps child care providers deliver high-quality early education that prepares children for kindergarten and beyond. Unlike drop-in daycare, our certified early childhood education model focuses on long-term development, combining research-backed curriculum, business support and family engagement.

    This year, we are expanding our efforts by providing enhanced training to center staff and classroom teachers, equipping them with effective strategies to support neurodivergent learners. These efforts will focus on implementing practical, evidence-based approaches that make a real difference.

    Actionable strategies

    As educators and leaders, we need to reimagine how learning environments are designed and delivered. Among the most effective actionable strategies are:

    • Creating sensory-friendly classrooms that reduce environmental stressors like noise, lighting, and clutter to help children stay calm and focused.
    • Offering flexible learning formats to meet a range of communication, motor, and cognitive styles, including visual aids, movement-based activities, and assistive technology.
    • Training teachers to recognize and respond to diverse behaviors with empathy and without stigma, so that what is often misinterpreted as “disruption” is instead seen as a signal of unmet needs.
    • Partnering with families to create support plans tailored to each child’s strengths and challenges to ensure continuity between home and classroom.
    • Incorporating play-based learning that promotes executive functioning, creativity, and social-emotional development, especially for children who struggle in more traditional formats.

    Benefits of inclusive early education

    Investing in inclusive, high-quality early education has meaningful benefits not only for neurodivergent children, but for other students, educators, families and the broader community. Research indicates that neurotypical students who learn alongside neurodivergent peers develop critical social-emotional skills such as patience, compassion and acceptance. Training in inclusive practices can help educators gain the confidence and tools needed to effectively support a wide range of learning styles and behaviors as well as foster a more responsive learning environment.

    Prioritizing inclusive early education can also create strong bonds between families and schools. These partnerships empower caregivers to play an active role in their child’s development, helping them navigate challenges and access critical resources early on. Having this type of support can be transformative for families by reducing feelings of isolation and reinforcing that their child is seen, valued, and supported.

    The benefits of inclusive early education extend far beyond the classroom. When neurodivergent children receive the support they need early in life, it lays the groundwork for increased workforce readiness. Long-term economic gains can include higher employment rates and greater earning potential for individuals. 

    Early childhood education must evolve to meet the needs of neurodivergent learners. We cannot afford to overlook the importance of early intervention and tailored learning environments. If we are serious about improving outcomes for all children, we must act now and commit to inclusivity as a core pillar of our approach. When we support all children early, everyone benefits.

    Latest posts by eSchool Media Contributors (see all)

    Source link

  • Falling mature student numbers requires policy action

    Falling mature student numbers requires policy action

    With the clutch of traditional higher education flashpoints accounted for – A level and SQA results days, and a clearing season reported to be particularly fraught in some quarters – the summer is drawing to a close, and a new academic year is upon us.

    Eighteen year olds are set to attend universities in record numbers, up 5 per cent year on year and up 27 per cent since 2016. This is unquestionably a great thing. However, it masks a troublingly stubborn decline in mature students numbers.

    In recent years, the number of these students – those aged 21 and over (or 25 and over for postgraduate study) – entering UK universities has been falling at an alarming rate, down by 26 per cent since 2016 according to UCAS. This decline may sound like a niche concern, but it carries big implications for the wider economy, for skills shortages, and for the prospects of people who want to reskill later in life.

    As the government prepares to roll out the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE), there’s an urgent opportunity to rethink how the sector and society support adult learners and to ensure that lifelong education becomes a central pillar of our skills system.

    The current picture

    While the signs from clearing so far offer some encouragement, due perhaps to a sluggish economy, the data remains stark. Over the past decade or more, the number of mature students entering higher education has steadily declined, down 43 per cent since 2012.

    The causes are multifaceted, but a shift began with the introduction of higher fees in 2012 and has persisted – it is well established that mature students tend to be more debt-averse, so this coupled with the rising cost of living and the upfront financial commitment of a degree will no doubt put off many.

    Others may well be put off by a lack of flexibility. While real strides have been made in this area, particularly at modern universities, the structures of funding and regulation mean a lot of courses are still designed for school-leavers with the time and freedom to study full-time. Family responsibilities, limited employer support for training and the still-dominant perception that universities are designed for 18-year-olds will also play a role.

    The pandemic briefly nudged some adults back into learning, but the overall trend remains downward. Without targeted action, these numbers are unlikely to recover on their own.

    A price to pay

    Why does this matter beyond the university sector? Because a thriving economy depends on people being able to learn, retrain, and adapt throughout their lives. Mature students often bring real-world experience into classrooms and tend to choose courses that fill urgent skills shortages – in health and social care, teaching, engineering, IT, and other high-demand sectors.

    When these pathways dry up, industries suffer. Skills gaps are prevalent across key sectors and have been estimated by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation to cost the economy almost £40bn per year. Without a pipeline of retrained workers, employers struggle to fill gaps, productivity growth stalls, and regional economies miss opportunities to regenerate.

    It’s also an issue of social mobility. For people whose school results closed off higher education the first time around, mature study offers a second chance to change careers, boost their earnings, and improve their families’ prospects. If that route disappears, inequality widens – and our economy pays the price.

    A new hope?

    The LLE, due to launch in 2026, aims to reshape post-18 education in England by enabling a move away from the traditional three- or four-year degree as the default model. Instead, individuals will be able to draw on a single pot of funding – equivalent to four years of study, or around £38,000 – and use it flexibly over their lifetimes, taking courses in smaller, more targeted chunks.

    In principle, this modular approach could open the door for adults with work and family commitments, allowing them to pursue short courses when needed and return later for further study without losing access to funding. By making learning more flexible, affordable, and tied to labour market needs, the LLE is pitched as a way to lower barriers that currently deter many mature learners, particularly in an economy being reshaped by AI, automation, and the green transition.

    Yet the promise of the scheme is far from guaranteed. The rollout is proving complex, with uncertainties over how funding will be administered, whether universities and colleges will be equipped to redesign courses in modular formats, and how easily learners will be able to navigate the system. Awareness is another challenge: adults with established careers and busy lives may not know the scheme exists, or may find the process of accessing funding too bureaucratic to be worth the effort. Employers, meanwhile, will need to support staff in using the entitlement – something that cannot be assumed.

    There are also cultural and practical reasons to doubt whether large numbers of mature learners will take up the LLE. Adults may be reluctant to re-enter formal education, particularly if they are anxious about returning to study, lack confidence with digital learning, or doubt the value of small qualifications in the job market. Others may weigh the potential benefits against the costs – not only financial, but also in time and disruption to family or work responsibilities – and decide against it.

    In short, while the LLE represents a bold attempt to modernise lifelong education, its success will depend on whether the system can overcome significant implementation hurdles and whether mature learners themselves see it as accessible, relevant, and worthwhile.

    The role of modern universities

    Universities are at the heart of this challenge. They too cannot rest on their laurels and must continue to consider how they design, market, and deliver their courses if they are to serve lifelong learners as effectively as they serve 18-year-olds fresh from colleges. Modern universities, which traditionally teach the majority of mature undergraduates, must continue to lead this agenda from the front.

    Partnerships with local employers, another area in which modern universities lead, are key. By aligning courses with regional economic needs – for example, creating pathways into green technologies, health and care, or digital sectors – universities can help ensure that adults return to education with a clear line of sight to better jobs.

    But a cultural shift is just as important. Universities need to be hubs for lifelong learning, not just finishing schools for young adults, and the government has significant work to do in getting the word out to the general public that the opportunity to study or re-train is there to be taken.

    The decline in mature students is more than a higher education story. It’s a warning sign for our economy and for our ability to adapt to change. The LLE offers a chance to reverse the trend – but only if universities, employers, and policymakers work together to make lifelong learning a reality.

    In a fast-changing world, education cannot stop at 21. The people of Britain need a system that allows people to keep learning, keep adapting, and keep contributing to the economy throughout their lives.

    Source link