Universities should make it easier to switch between full-time and part-time study possibly by making students pay for each module they complete rather than a whole programme of study.
According to the government-commissioned report by Paul Ramsden the chief executive of the Higher Education Academy. British universities offer outstanding teaching and student experience.
Ramsden said that 42% of the student population is part time. “That number is likely to grow over the next 10 to 15 years. The system as it is at the moment does not give proper credit to people who do part of a degree.”
Other recommendations include giving students more information to help them pick the best universities for job prospects and future salary.
Ramsden recommends more general undergraduate degrees such as those in the US and Australia that would help graduates “contribute to the world of the future” rather than prepare them for academia.
“Degrees are still in the mode of an apprenticeship preparing students for an academic career. The curriculum needs to be a broader study of many different subject areas including global perspectives. We still specialise too early and that’s very damaging,” he said.
Students should have more say in their learning and there should be a career path for academics that want to specialise in teaching rather than research. Ramsden argues.
The report on research careers by Warwick University’s vice-chancellor. Nigel Thrift suggests that the government’s widening participation agenda should stretch to postgraduate study.
More researchers need to transfer between academia and industry and government should look at future demand for researchers as well as extending scholarships for high-quality international postgraduate students he said.
The government’s chief scientific advisor. John Beddington and the vice-chancellor of Keele University. Janet Finch said government needed to be a more intelligent commissioner of research.
“Our investigation has shown that the engagement between academics and policy makers in the UK is not as strong as it might be,” they concluded.
Christine King the vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University said the success of part-time students would increasingly depend on flexible university structures and systems that suit their needs rather than those of the institution.
The English funding council. Hefce recommended government adopts spidergrams to allow similar institutions to be compared rather than league tables.
Paul Wellings the vice-chancellor of Lancaster University said the UK was adept at turning basic research into effective intellectual property but the government should be clear that the main objective should not be maximising financial returns but broad social and economic benefits.
Drummond Bone the vice-chancellor of Liverpool University said universities should focus their international efforts on a long-term programme of internationalisation which might include building overseas campuses.
“Despite current economic conditions it is naive to suppose that UK universities can operate effectively take the right strategic decisions and compete with emerging global giants while funded at approximately one third of US levels,” she said.
“This debate has come at a crucial time for higher education. In this difficult financial climate and as we look ahead to a spending review it is important not to lose sight of the potential for the UK university system to become much stronger still – and for it to make an even more substantial contribution to the country’s economic social and cultural well-being than it is doing now,” she said.
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