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Our Education and Student Experience. Professor Mark Taylor Dean, Warwick Business School Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick. External Context. The challenges ……………….. Higher student fees Student satisfaction Higher education seen as career progression
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Our Education and Student Experience Professor Mark Taylor Dean, Warwick Business School Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick
External Context • The challenges ……………….. • Higher student fees • Student satisfaction • Higher education seen as career progression • Decrease in government HE funding alongside increased regulation • Widening access, widening participation • New providers entering the sector • Global competition • “The squeezed middle” • UK Border Agency controls • International collaboration • MOOCs & SPOCs • REF and Rankings • …………… how to seize opportunities?
Spending Cuts Source: IFS / UUK
Changes in income of UK HEI’s Cumulative real-terms actual and forecast changes in income of UK HEIs since 2010-11 (source: HEFCE 2014)
The New Public Management • First Thatcher administration – ‘neoliberal managerialist’ • Blair administration – ‘technocratic managerialist’ • 1985 Jarratt Report • 1997 Dearing Report • 2010 Browne Report • 2011 BIS white paper: Students at the Heart of the System
‘Students at the Heart of the System’ • Discussed: • Student financial reforms • A “renewed focus on high-quality teaching” • A new focus on student charters, student feedback and graduate outcomes • New regulatory framework with HEFCE taking on “a major new role as a consumer champion”
‘Students at the Heart of the System’ • Aims of Government Policy: • Universities would be under competitive pressure to provide better quality at lower cost • There would be a greater diversity of provision • Greater variety in terms of modes of delivery and learning • More innovative teaching • Increased social mobility
The ‘student experience’ • Increasingly, ‘institutional reputation’ has become synonymous with rankings and league table performance • Newspaper rankings, Guardian, Times etc • Reliant on data supplied via multiple sources including the National Student Survey (NSS) – focussed on the ‘student experience’ • PTES – Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey • Policy environment has led to the rise of the ‘student as client/customer’
What do students say they want? Source: National Union of Students (2008) NUS Student Experience Report
What do students say they want? • Attainment of qualifications • A high degree of employability and high earning potential upon completion of their degree
(Current) Students at the Heart of the System • Consumer model makes the student experience into something determined by what the university offers rather than by what students can bring • “…they [tutors] should tell us in the feedback, this is what you're missing, this is what you should do differently next time to get a first” (Warwick student survey) • Feedback framed as an issue of assessment rather than of supporting and facilitating student learning • Students’ see higher learning in terms of the successful navigation of assessment hurdles placed in their way by the university and a transfer of shared responsibility
(Current) Students at the Heart of the System • Universities are increasingly incentivised to provide what students want, not what they need • Some students may want an Easy A, but need a good education • Potential to impact standards negatively • Ignores needs of other stakeholders, e.g.: • Employers • Current students later in life • Society at large
(Current) Students at the Heart of the System • Student experience = joint responsibility of student and HEI • HEI responsibility to provide • Intellectual climate • Facilities • Teaching standards • Student responsibility to • Actively engage in learning development (e.g. through active engagement with feedback)
The Challenge • Government policy puts student at the heart of the system • May be to the detriment of other stakeholders • May be to the detriment of other elements of the university offer
Unbundling of the university offer • Knowledge production • Knowledge dissemination • Student experience • Signalling and accreditation
The essential dialectic of the university • Origin of the university in late mediaeval Europe • Deriving from monastic tradition of scholarship • The need to develop professional class of clergy, public administrators, lawyers, physicians and business stewards as Europe emerged from the Dark Ages • But also more purely intellectual in the elevation of learning as a means of human improvement as an essential part of the European Renaissance
Tomorrow’s University: Possible Futures
The Industrial University • Large-scale enrolment • National and global recruitment • Large online and blended eLearning agenda using and adapting globally developed content • Largely a teaching institution • Offering: • knowledge dissemination • signalling • student experience (of a kind)
The Virtual University • Large-scale enrolment • National and global recruitment • 100% online eLearning agenda using and adapting globally developed content • Largely a teaching institution • Offering: • Knowledge dissemination • Signalling • Virtual student experience • A variant of the Industrial University
The Elite University • Large but highly selective enrolment • Combination of on-campus and blended teaching and learning • Global partnerships and reach • Online content setting the international standard and licenced for use by other universities • World-class research base, both basic and applied • Offering: • knowledge production • knowledge dissemination • signalling • student experience
The Regional University • Enrolment largely regional, with high number of students living at home • Largely on-campus teaching with some blended learning • Strong benefits to the local economy • Solid research base with emphasis on applications to the regional economy and collaborative research with regional industry • Offering: • knowledge production • knowledge dissemination • signalling • reduced student experience
The Boutique University • Small and selective enrolment • Teaching may be highly specialised and vocational (e.g. law, business) or liberal arts • Largely on-campus teaching with some blended learning licenced from Elite University providers • Predominantly a teaching institution • Offering: • knowledge dissemination • signalling • student experience
The Non-University University • Students construct their own course of online study from a range of sources, particularly for postgraduate courses • MOOCs – certificates of completion • Online accredited courses bought from Elite, Industrial and Virtual Universities • Non-university providers offering degree-level courses – e.g. Financial Times non-executive director programme • Offering: • knowledge dissemination • (some) virtual student experience • (some) signalling
…he is not actually pointing down…
Our Education and Student Experience Professor Mark Taylor Dean, Warwick Business School Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick