Design Education for Disadvantaged Students

Dr Neil Raven

Dr Neil Raven, a UK educational consultant has provided a useful analysis on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the educational ambitions of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds (Raven, 2023). They talked to 14 teaching professionals from schools and colleges in the English disadvantaged areas. Raven concluded that the participation gap for higher education widened due to the pandemic. However, I suggest a problem with the analysis is that it focuses on how to get more students to attend existing forms of higher education not designed form them, not what is best for the students. 

Universities were unable to send staff to schools during the pandemic to recruit students. What Raven doesn't point out is that universities could, and should, have had alternative ways to interact with students. Just as universities could have had an online teaching option available before the pandemic, but most chose not to, they could have provided ways to reach out to school students online. That lack of care for students, I suggest, could be a useful indicator for future students. Those institutions having inflexible practices, may not be the best for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. These students will be more likely to need part time jobs, and have family care duties to attend to, so need flexible ways of learning. They therefore should choose a university, or VET institution, which provides flexibility, and does not require in-person attendance.

Raven also mentioned students’ concerns about moving away from home to study were made worse by the pandemic. This is a reasonable and rational concern of students. Rather than dismissing it, as an inconvenience for universities which have a campus based business model, I suggest it can be addressed by bringing the institution to the student. In addition Raven mentions the cost of higher education being a greater concern due to the pandemic making jobs less secure. Here again, the solution should not be trying to convince students that the cost is not a problem, but lower the debt burden on students, through lower fees, and options for part time work, with nested qualifications. 

Ironically Raven's research is published by the UK Open University, but the paper doesn't discuss the option of studnts from disadvantaged backgrounds studying at such institutions, which were specifically designed to overcome such disadvantage.

References

Raven, N. (2023). The impact of the pandemic on widening participation students: the teaching professionals’ perspective. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning, 25(1), 99-124. DOI https://doi.org/10.5456/WPLL.25.1.99 

Online Plus is the Post-COVID19 Future of Higher Education

Learning and teaching
reimagined, JISC, 2020

The UK's JISC think-tank have put forward the hyflex plus university as a vision for Higher Educaiton after COVID-19. This would offer options of online study, on campus with work placements, or accelerated intensive on campus study. However, the campus options appear to be a marketing strategy designed to prop up a fading business model, rather than based on pedagogy. There is one model for the university of the future: online plus. This can include online accelerated and work placement options, plus optional on-campus study.

Students can be offered fully online, part-time study as the foundation of their university experience. There can be work placement included in this and accelerated options. Neither of these require attending, or living, on a campus, although that can also be offered. This online anchored form of HE is not some fantasy: in 2011 I set out to learn to teach, starting in a classroom 2 km from where I live, six years later I graduated from a university I had never seen, 13,586 km away.

Any university which adopts JISC's long term vision for 2030 is likely to be out of business before then. While I don't have JISC's committee to back up my predictions, in the last paragraph of the capstone for my MEd in 2016, I warned that universities should be prepared to teach online if students were kept away by a global crisis. Also I predicted that students would be studying 80% online by 2020. Those who planned an online contingency before 2020, as I did, had less difficulty with the transition this year. Those who build campus options onto this online foundation, I suggest, will prosper.

It doesn't make a lot of sense from an educational point of view to have students on campus all the time. Studying exclusively on campus in a face to face classroom would hinder completion of a degree, by excluding quality online learning and co-curricular learning opportunities off campus.

Living on a campus is a lifestyle choice, unrelated to the quality of education provided. Apart from restricting student's opportunity to learn real world skills, being restricted to a campus would severely limit employment opportunities.

This is not to say students should study entirely at home, isolated in front of a computer screen. Ideally students should be studying part time while in related employment, so they have supervision and support from working professionals. Also the student should have access to a face to face group of fellow students and, occasionally, an instructor. This does not need to be on the main campus where the student is enrolled, or a university campus at all.

Some students will require specialized equipment and environments, however, COVID-19 measures show that much of this can be provided outside the university, and much can be simulated online. Some professions which previously relied on face to face contact, such as medicine and the law, have shown that they can be provided partly online, making online training more feasible and more realistic.

There will be students wanting a campus lifestyle and prepared to pay extra for it. This can be provided in the same way luxury cars are now manufactured. Bentley is thought of as hand built UK premium brand. However, hand built cars are less reliable than robot made ones and the engineering needed for a modern vehicle cannot be amortized over a limited production run. So Bentley cars are based on mass produced designs from their parent company Volkswagen. Components made by robots in Germany are imported to the UK, assembled and hand finished. The result is a car which looks premium but is also safe, reliable and profitable. The same approach can be applied to education: start with a well designed curriculum of online learning which is delivered to hundreds of thousands of students world wide, then add a campus experience. The student can follow the same syllabus as those off-campus, but with the option of a face to face instructor. The educational outcomes will be no better on campus for the average student and so this option should not receive additional government subsides, but some students will still opt for it, just as some pay extra for a Volkswagen with a Bentley badge.

Another aspect of the motor vehicle industry which can be applied to higher education is brands for different regions. The engineering design underpinning the German made Volkswagen Golf is also used for the Spanish SEAT and Czech Škoda vehicles. Some universities and consortia take a similar approach, offering the same curriculum nationally, or worldwide under different institution brands. Torrens University Australia is based in Adelaide and accredited to award Australian degrees, but is part of the for-profit Laureate Education Inc. in Baltimore. Laureate has almost one million students worldwide and so can spread the cost of course development better than it could for just their 11,500 Australian students., while still having local campuses. Laureate has also incorporated several specialist campuses in Australia such as the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School (BMIHMS).

Open Universities Australia (OUA) offers another model for the future university. This is a consortium of Australian universities which offers online degrees. Students can mix courses from the member universities, but graduate with a degree from one of them (not OUA). OUA students and courses are administered separately from the university's own students. However, the cooperation might be extended to allow regular students to enroll in online courses at member universities. This may require some changes to government regulations which restrict online courses for some students. Government might go further and require universities to allow and recognize such cross enrollment, but perhaps not to the extent of the vocational sector, where curricular are nationally standardized.

Reference

Learning and teaching reimagined, JISC, 11 August 2020, URL http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/7921/1/ltr-report-change-and-challenge-for-students-staff-and-leaders-aug-2020.pdf

UK Sustainable Technology Strategy 2020

The UK Government has released a policy paper on "The greening government: sustainable technology strategy 2020 - sustainable technology for sustainable government" (UK Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, 10 December 2018). Government departments are required to report on green ICT efforts and e-waste production. There is a target of 40% government meetings conducted by e-conferencing (with no date specified for implementation. Also there is a target of zero e-waste by 2020. But there appear to be no targets for reducing energy use, or carbon emissions.

Contents

1. Commendation by the Technology and Digital Leaders Network Chair
2. Vision
3. The story so far
4. Rationale
5. Purpose and applicability
6. Principles
7. Scope
8. Ends
9. Ways
10. Means
11. Governance and controls
12. Summary of departmental commitments
13. Annex: Government outcomes – a hierarchy

ps: Those who want to know how to estimate emissions and e-waste from ICT in an organization can take my course "ICT Sustainability". This will next offered on-line by Athabasca University (Canada)  in 2019, and ANU (Australia) in 2020.

UK Government Plan for Vocational Education

The UK Department for Education has released a sixty page . .

Policy paper on "Post-16 skills plan and independent report on technical education" (8 July 2016). The UK technical education system, equivalent to Australia's vocational education and training (VET) system, will be simplified with 15 "routes" for clusters of occupations. There will be options for education at a college and employment based education (with a minimum of 20% at college).

.

The proposed routes are:

.

1. Route name: Agriculture, Environmental and Animal Care. Numbers employed: 454,726. Typical job roles: Conservationist, park ranger, farmer, horticulturalist, agricultural manager, agricultural technician
2. Route name: Business and Administrative: Numbers employed: 2,204,478. Typical job roles: Human resources officer, office manager, administrative officer, housing officer
3. Route name: Catering and Hospitality. Numbers employed: 568,998. Typical job roles: Chef, butcher, baker, catering manager, events manager
4. Route name: Childcare and Education. Numbers employed: 1,060,804. Typical job roles: Nursery assistant, early years officer, teaching assistant, youth worker
5. Route name: Construction. Numbers employed: 1,625,448. Typical job roles: Bricklayer/mason, electrician, building/civil engineering technician, carpenter/joiner, construction supervisor
6. Route name: Creative and Design. Numbers employed: 529,573. Typical job roles: Arts producer, graphic designer, audio-visual technician, journalist, product/clothing designer, upholsterer, tailor, furniture maker
7. Route name: Digital. Numbers employed: 351,649. Typical job roles: IT business analyst/systems designer, programmer, software. developer, IT technician, web designer, network administrator
8. Route name: Engineering and Manufacturing. Numbers employed: 1,319,645. Typical job roles: Engineering technician, vehicle mechanic, aircraft fitter, printer,. process technician, energy plant operative
9. Route name: Hair and Beauty. Numbers employed: 293,004. Typical job roles: Hairdresser, barber, beauty therapist
10. Route name: Health and Science. Numbers employed: 915,979. Typical job roles: Nursing assistant, pharmaceutical technician, sports therapist,. laboratory technician, dental nurse, food technician
11. Route name: Legal, Finance and Accounting. Numbers employed: 1,325,482. Typical job roles: Accounting technician, paralegal, financial account manager, payroll. manager, finance officer, legal secretary
12. Route name: Protective Services. Numbers employed: 398,400. We expect this route will primarily be delivered through apprenticeships.. Typical job roles: Police officer, fire service officer, non-commissioned officer (NCO),. maritime operations officer (coastguard)
13. Route name: Sales, Marketing and Procurement. Numbers employed: 957,185. We expect this route will primarily be delivered through apprenticeships.. Typical job roles: Buyer, procurement officer, sales account manager, market research. analyst, estate agent
14. Route name: Social Care. Numbers employed: 865,941. We expect this route will primarily be delivered through apprenticeships.. Typical job roles: Care worker, residential warden, home carer, probation officer,. welfare counsellor
15. Route name: Transport and Logistics. Numbers employed: 589,509. We expect this route will primarily be delivered through apprenticeships.. Typical job roles: Ship’s officer, railway signalling technician, HGV driver....
    
    From Post-16 skills plan and independent report on technical education, UK Department for Education, Policy paper 8 July 2016, Page 22

Universities maintain public responsibility and social purpose

In "Universities are losing their sense of public responsibility and social purpose" (The Guardian, 6 January 2015), Professor Peter Scott writes "... we seem to be increasingly losing our sense of public responsibility and wider social purpose ...". He may feel that his institution, University College London (UCL), is losing its sense of public responsibility, but he does not necessarily speak for other academics.

Professor Scott seems to be attributing this perceived loss of public responsibility to the need for not-for-profit universities to compete with for-profit institutions. However, universities have been competing with each other, and with other for-profit educational and research organizations, for hundreds of years.

Universities can't avoid being "entrepreneurial", as they are in the business of organizing and operating educational and research activities. Unless Professor Scott is proposing that education and research should only be carried out by independently wealthy individuals, then someone, somehow has to pay for these activities. Education and research can be paid for by the state, by public donations, by students, by licensing intellectual property, or more likely, by a mix of these. Someone, somehow has to decide which institutions get how much money. This can be decided by fiat, through some rule based process (by a bureaucracy), through market forces, or more likely a mix of these.

If Professor Scott doesn't like the way his university is run, then as a professor he has the opportunity to seek to have his institution change its ways. A university with less bureaucracy, an emphasis on education for broad social benefit and long term society benefit certainly sounds attractive. Perhaps Professor Scott needs to look to what other institutions, in other countries are doing. He will find there are universities which look to long term social benefit and try to minimize bureaucracy.

UCL is contributing to new and interesting educational initiatives. One of these is  UCL Australia, which shares a building in Adelaide with  Carnegie Mellon University Australia and Torrens University Australia (part of Laureate International Universities). Australian rules for the registration of universities makes it difficult to establish a flexible on-line institution. UCL, CMU and Laureate appear to have found a way through these regulations, which will hopefully be to the benefit of Australian higher education.