New flexible degrees the key to growth in higher education

John Denham delivered a speech on the future of higher education to a conference of senior academics at which he said:

“The future higher education system will need to ensure greater diversity of methods of study, as well as of qualifications. Long-term trends suggest that part-time study will continue to rise, and it's difficult to see how we can increase the supply of graduates as we must without an increase in part-time study.

"But we will surely need to move decisively away from the assumption that a part-time degree is a full time degree done in bits. I don't have any doubt that the degree will remain the core outcome. But the trend to more flexible ways of learning will bring irresistible pressure for the development of credits which carry value in their own right, for the acceptance of credits by other institutions, and for the ability to complete a degree through study at more than one institution."

In this wide ranging speech he also called for a significant improvement in routes from vocational study into higher education and will stress that the more research intensive universities must address fair access effectively, or their student population will remain skewed.  

Mr Denham launched the Higher Education debate in February 2008, the aim is to develop a framework to ensure world class status of the higher education sector is maintained. His speech took this debate to the next stage.

It also covered issues surrounding postgraduate research and study, research excellence and the need for better partnership working between institutions. He argued that an important part of maintaining our world class status will be to ensure that overall funding for higher education - from public and private sectors - will have to increase. However he pointed out that the case for this will have to be more strongly made if this is to be a reality.

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