Extract from Forever Learning
(Book published in 2016 so some of the numbers not up to date)
Chapter 9
THE FUTURE – LEARNING BEYOND SCHOOL
The future of further and higher education
Achievements but questions to ask
The achievements of further and higher education in this country and throughout the world have been incredible. We should reflect on the scale of these achievements and permit ourselves some self-congratulation. Nearly every aspect of our daily lives has been touched in some way by education that has involved the acquisition of advanced knowledge and skills. When we switch on a light, drive our cars, send a message on our phones, cook our meals, wash our clothes, clean our teeth, watch television and do a thousand other things we are benefiting from advanced learning and training. We benefit from two features of this, one being the knowledge and skills which have gone into the creation of different products, and the other being the knowledge and skills which have been taught to those who produce, distribute, install and maintain them. As well as benefiting from the advanced learning and training which brings us our modern conveniences we benefit from it in other aspects of our everyday lives – when doctors and nurses care for us, when teachers educate our children, when we are protected by the police and members of the armed forces and whenever, in fact, we use specialist services provided by the public or private sector.
The benefits of advanced levels of education are beyond measure. They have come about because knowledge and skills have been well taught at the highest level. We must therefore ensure that our ambitions for further and higher education will preserve and improve the quality of learning that currently exists and not diminish it in any way.
In addition to bringing immeasurable benefits to all of us in our daily lives our system of further and higher education is hugely beneficial to those who make use of it for their training and learning. It prepares them to earn a living, it provides them with a fulfilling learning experience and it offers extensive opportunities to enjoy friendships and relationships. Today most young people go on to post-16 education but whether the system is successful for everyone is something we need to consider.
Looking at the achievement of further and higher education in bringing these benefits to society and to individuals the central purpose of postcompulsory provision is clear. It is to train people for employment – employment that creates the comfortable and civilised society in which we live and employment that enables people to support themselves and their families. This function of training people for work is a continuation of much of what was provided in the past especially by technical colleges, teacher training colleges, colleges of advanced technology and medical schools. The vocational function of this stage of education has never been its only purpose however. As well as training people for work it has also been the means of implementing and reinforcing the process of job selection that begins with examinations taken in school. It has generally been the case that students with higher grades at GSCE, or prior to GCSEs those with sufficient O levels, have gone on to take A levels and either enter a white-collar occupation or proceed to university while those with lower grades have taken courses preparing them for practical occupations.
Another purpose that has applied to higher education particularly, and still applies, has been that of expanding minds and engaging in serious learning for its own sake. This luxury of being able to spend three or more years studying without preparing for a specific occupation has, to a large extent, been made possible by the belief that a university education gives people the intellectual abilities that are required at certain levels of employment. As they expand their minds and enjoy immersing themselves in the subjects of their choice they are, at the same time, supposedly developing analytical skills that are transferable to a wide range of professional, managerial and administrative positions – or so the rather questionable argument runs.
Alongside the purpose that higher education serves by providing establishments where learning can be pursued for its own sake is the purpose of providing places of scholarship and research. In the sciences research projects have brought innumerable benefits to society and in other subjects research and scholarship have enriched our lives by adding to our knowledge of the universe and humankind.
Finally, there is the purpose of personal development that is seen as being served by further and higher education. Students need to be able to put into practice and develop the attitudes to work they should have learned earlier – attitudes they require for their studying and work placements such as being conscientious, industrious and reliable. Other aspects of personal development young people can learn at college and university include the capacity to make their own decisions, the capacity to organise their lives and, for those living away from home, the capacity to live independently.
The questions we should ask about post-compulsory education are how well it is fulfilling the purposes set out above, whether the system we have is necessary to fulfil them and whether there are any other concerns relating to the system which need to be addressed. We will start by looking at other concerns and I can think of three that need to be considered carefully.
The first is the cost to the public purse. Given there are so many areas of society where public money can be spent it is reasonable to ask whether costs can be reduced. Since the introduction of university tuition fees, and the subsequent raising of them, the overall cost to the taxpayer of further and higher education has, in fact, been lessened. Nevertheless it is not an insignificant sum of money – over £10 billion.
The second concern is the cost to individual students of going to university. Tuition fees are now running at £9,000 a year for English universities and these, together with living expenses, make up the considerable personal cost of higher education which students meet by taking out a loan. Although these loans are only repaid when annual salaries reach a certain threshold they will make a noticeable dent in someone’s income for many years to come.1 The proposals for further and higher education which I set out presently would reduce costs for both individual students and society without, I believe, affecting the quality of learning being offered.
The third concern is one I have not heard raised but in the spirit of challenging our cherished traditions, which is one of mypurposes, I will raise it now. I wonder whether having such a vast swathe of young people belonging to a distinct student class is healthy for society or the young people themselves. Do we need the concept of the student or should we consider those in their teens or early twenties as young adults whose training and studies mark the beginning of their working lives? Personally I think it is time we put a much greater emphasis on the latter position and viewed training and studying for work as part of adult life not something separate from it. It is a stage that should be seen as requiring the responsible, mature attitudes that are needed in adulthood.
Looking at the questions as to whether our system of post-compulsory education is fulfilling its purposes as well as it should be, or whether it is actually necessary to fulfil them, everyone will acknowledge that it brings enormous benefits to society. There can be no doubt about this but I think it should be possible to create a system that is even better at fulfilling its prime purpose of training young people for the world of work. The system we have is certainly an efficient means of training large numbers of people and highquality courses are undoubtedly being provided in colleges and universities. However, too many students do not go on to use the knowledge and training they receive. They take jobs in which their specialist learning is not required or they switch courses or, having started a course, they drop out of the system altogether.2 When these situations arise the courses the students have taken have not prepared them for the jobs they eventually enter and it thus seems reasonable to say that the system is not fulfilling its central purpose as well as it should be.3
I would suggest that if people do not use any of the specialist knowledge and training they have received then it has not been necessary for them to go to college or university to prepare for work. Some will argue that even if they do not use the knowledge they have gained they will nevertheless have acquired other useful skills that could be applied to any type of employment but I would argue that acquiring these should not be necessary at this stage as they should mostly be acquired at school. (see Chapter 7) As for the idea that a university education, particularly, is necessary to equip people with the analytical skills that are required in white-collar occupations I am not at all persuaded. These, too, should be acquired at school and if thinking skills are to be given the much higher priority that I have proposed we can be more confident they will be. Learned thoroughly at school they will be useful for all occupations and not only those classed as white-collar.
It should not be necessary, either, to go to college or university to acquire good attitudes to work as these should be learned thoroughly at an earlier age. Proof that post-compulsory education is not needed to equip young people with good attitudes can be seen in the paid work that some of them undertake as teenagers. They have not learned to be conscientious, industrious and reliable because they have spent five years at college and university, they have already learned these attitudes, largely at home. Nor am I convinced that the system we have is necessary to learn the other aspects of personal development I mentioned. No one needs to go to college or university to learn how to live independently – they can do this anywhere – and nor do they need further or higher education to learn how to organise their lives or how to make their own decisions.
I do, however, believe that further and higher education fulfils the purpose of providing opportunities to engage in serious learning for its own sake. Universities, especially, offer courses in many areas of knowledge that add to our understanding of the world and of human achievements but which are of limited practical use. Such learning for its own sake is important but I cannot see why we need three-year degree courses to provide it. Short courses available to everyone would provide plenty of scope for in-depth studying and we should concentrate on offering more of these.
The purpose of post-compulsory education that is supremely well fulfilledis that of providing places of scholarship and research. Our universities are centres of excellence, between them covering every field of knowledge, and this contributes enormously to society. It is worth remembering, though, that universities are not the only places where research is carried out. It is happening in businesses, hospitals and museums. And it is being undertaken by knowledgeable individuals and groups, doing their forever learning, who are looking into their family history, studying nearby archaeological sites or carrying out botanical surveys in their local areas.
We will end this discussion about how well further and higher education is fulfilling its purposes by returning to the subject of job selection, something that has been considered in detail in relation to schools. If our system of post-compulsory education is reinforcing the flawed job selection process begun in school it is likely to be falling short in helping people obtain the sort of job they would find fulfilling or be suited for.4 If, as I have argued we have the potential to learn to do anything and become highly capable in both practical and academic tasks there are probably those who are presently taking vocational courses in further education who, if they wished, could be taking more academic courses at university and those who are presently taking academic courses who could be preparing for a practical trade.
At fifteen young people should be able to choose the courses they wished to follow on the basis of their interests or future employment aspirations. To be selected for a course they would need to show they had been interested in the area they were planning to study or train for and they might need to be assessed in some way as to their suitability.5 They would all need to understand that they would be required to have a strong commitment to their studies or training and would be thoroughly assessed during and at the end of their course.
At present, by channelling young people in certain directions based on examinations taken at school our system of further and higher education reinforces the idea that we are destined for a certain sort of job and the certain sort of salary that goes with it. This is not our destiny. We have the potential to do any job and because of this we can, and do, change direction in our adult lives. If people have the capacity to go in a different direction we do not want a system which, on the basis of their exam grades or lack of them, leads them into occupations for which they have no great enthusiasm. We want a system which guides them into, and trains them for, employment they are interested in and to which they will commit themselves enthusiastically.
Apart from the influence of exam grades there are two other factors which add to young people’s difficulties when they choose the occupation they would like to take up. One, quite logically, is that they are not going to know whether they will enjoy, or be suited for, a particular occupation until they actually try it. If they do not like it, or are unsuited for it, they are entitled to look for something different which may require them to be retrained. We cannot expect young people always to choose the right course or career option first time.
The second factor is that universities continue to provide a vast number of essentially non-vocational courses ranging from history, English and politics to classics and American studies. Many students are engaged in learning for its own sake rather than in learning that is necessary to acquire the knowledge and skills for a specific occupation. They hope that simply having a degree will open doors to well-paid employment but they discover this is not always as straightforward as they would like it to be.
A higher education system that is turning out large numbers of young adults with degrees in non-vocational subjects is not one that is contributing as much as it should be to the admittedly difficult process of trying to place people in jobs they will do well and find satisfying at the same time – a combination that will be good for them and good for society. Where the system is better at placing people in jobs is, not surprisingly, when it is delivering vocational courses. This is the case both for young people and older age groups who wish to have a change of direction in their employment. Vocational courses prepare people for specific occupations and, provided the labour market is favourable, offer them a route into the workplace. Those who still believe that having a degree in a non-vocational subject will open doors to remunerative and satisfying employment may find the doors more difficult to open than they anticipated. In which case, in terms of their job prospects, the system will not have been as beneficial to them as it could have been.
Rethinking the system
A new system for further and higher education is suggested here.