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Putting the Flex back into Flexibility. Mike Osborne University of Stirling m.j.osborne@stir.ac.uk. Meanings. Flexible workforce adaptive and reactive to a flexible economy and labour market agents of change contributing to innovation (Johnson and Lundvall 1991)
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Putting the Flex back into Flexibility Mike Osborne University of Stirling m.j.osborne@stir.ac.uk
Meanings • Flexible workforce • adaptive and reactive to a flexible economy and labour market • agents of change contributing to innovation (Johnson and Lundvall 1991) • Social, Cultural and Personal Flexibility • Individuals and enterprises should be more entrepreneurial, competitive, market-oriented
Flexible Learning • Flexible learning • '…all those situations where learners have some say in how, where or when learning takes place' (Ellington, 1997)
Home and international • ‘…the importance of a highly motivated, flexible and well-qualified workforce to the United Kingdom’s international competitiveness’(DfEE, 1995) • ‘the need to render traditional education systems more accessible and less rigid so that learners of all ages can embark on reasonably individual study programmes’(Jouve 2001) • ‘far reaching change from a supply steered system to a flexible system steered by changing individual demands’Swedish Ministry of Education and Science (2001)
Models of in-reach • Summer Schools (for (mainly)school-pupils) • The modern model First Chance • Access Courses (for adults) • The historic model Second Chance • Entrance tests • Aptitude tests, Psychometric testing (e.g. Medicine in UK and Australia) • Examen Spécial d’Entrée à l’Universit (l'ESEU)), and later the Diplôme d’Accès aux Etudes Universitaires (DAEU) • Prueba de acceso a la universidad para mayores de 25 años
Models of out-reach • School links - awareness raising • FE/HE links • Workplace learning • Vertical, Longitudinal, All-embracing, Integrated (Woodrow and Thomas 2002)
Examples of Flexibility • Modularity/Credit accumulation and transfer schemes(e.g. SCQF) • Distance Education, Open University Systems, ODL, ICT(e.g. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, the Dutch Open University, the Finnish Open University, UHI) • RPL/AP(E)L(e.g. La Validation D’Acquis de la Experience (VAE)) • Independent Study • Bologna to Bergen
Modularity • Horizontal • Vertical
What’s curriculum got to do with it? Key barriers • Pre-requisite knowledge • Subject specific • Study skills • Assessment skills • Inflexibility of both HN Design and degree structures and delivery options
And more • Lack of acceptance of equivalence within credit frameworks • Grading systems • (Lack of) ‘gatekeeping’ at entry and exit
Distant Failings • ICT and Access • Technological Failings • Cost
RPL • Challenges to traditional conceptions of knowledge • Procedures
Raising Aspirations • Is it enough? • The evidence base