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In this paper we attempt to show that there are distinct geographical differences in the preferred style of higher education (HE) in further education (FE) partnerships. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) data relating to direct and indirect/collaborative funding have been used to identify three discrete categories of funding HE in FE: indirect/collaborative, direct and mixed economy. These same data have been used to generate three maps which portray a regional/subregional perspective on funding HE in FE. We put forward the suggestion that policy debates on direct and indirect/collaborative funding of HE in FE should not only consider political and academic issues: they should also take into account the geographic characteristics of the region/subregion.

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This article draws on ethnographic research conducted from 1997 to 2001, focusing on the critiques and accounts of a group of mature students participating in access programs (Access to Higher Education, Return to Study and Women’s Studies) at a case-study English suburban further education college. The article focuses in particular on the white, working-class women who participated in the study, to consider the connections between their gendered and classed subjectivities and the contemporary discourses in play within the policy of access education. It considers the meanings that the women bring to their courses, including their desire for self-discovery through education. The women found their way to education owing partly to a longing for ‘a space of their own’. Their longing challenges the discourses of widening participation found in contemporary policy documents, which construct access education as primarily a functional and utilitarian bridge into work. However, the women’s narratives also reinforce meritocratic discourses that construct access students as individuals, outside gendered and classed relations, with natural qualities and abilities, obscuring complex social processes of identifications, exclusions and inclusions that operate within (and outside) educational sites.

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This paper provides an examination of the possible advantages of using the theory and practice of popular education to teach Access to Higher Education (HE) students in a further education (FE) setting. Access to HE courses are intended to attract adults who have missed out on access to HE and have come to form part of the increasingly divers curriculum of FE colleges. Using the approach of Paolo Freire, students are encouraged to think critically and to engage in collective ways of learning and achieving educational goals. Show less

In 1986 an estimated 11% of Australian 18 to 24-year-olds were enrolled in higher education (Dawkins, 1987b, p 109). By 2005 just under 20% of 18 to 24-year-olds were enrolled in higher education. In 1986 Australia had a structure but not the financing to support mass higher education in Trow’s (1974) terms; 20 years later it has the financing but no longer the structure to support mass higher education. Another big and distinctive change in Australian higher education over the last two decades has been the growth of international students, from 4% of total enrolments in 1988 to 25% of enrolments in 2005. This article reports on how Australia made these changes, the strengths and weaknesses of Australia’s approach and the issues these may raise for other countries. It argues that the main motive for Australia’s expansion of higher education for both domestic and international students was to expand its contribution to the country’s economic development; equity and student access remained an incidental consideration, increasingly overlooked as the period under review progressed.

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This paper cites three key issues as underpinning the problems in the British vocational education system. These are: 1. the perceptions and misperceptions resulting from the historical British class structure; 2. the significant after-effects of the post-1944 tripartite education system on public and employer perceptions; and 3. the current emphasis on the perceived significance of intellectual capital and the creation of a knowledge economy to meet the challenges of globalisation.

The paper provides a rationale for each of these issues and proposes a range of solutions to counteract their negative impact including the disaggregating of Key Skills from apprenticeships, the expansion of the qualifications available at Level 4 to provide additional access routes and the formation of genuine partnerships between further education and higher education with shared teaching, shared resources, shared staff development and joint research.

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Current higher education policy in England is characterised by some enduring dilemmas and challenges that the New Labour government has so far largely failed to resolve in its unprecedented three terms in office. How to pay for a mass system that is approaching 50% participation by young people, how to achieve greater equity of access to that system and how to transform higher education [HE] to meet new social and economic needs are the principal long-term challenges among others that remain unfinished business. This article examines policymaking on expansion, diversity, funding, research and teaching during this period. It argues that the policymaking process in England, and the trajectory this has taken since 1997, may be as significant as the policies themselves in limiting future options. It identifies four characteristics of the current policymaking process and their implications for the future direction of HE policy in England: increasing centralisation, the co-option of sector initiatives for government purposes, the tensions between short-term initiatives and longer-term approaches and the predominance of ideology over research as a basis for policy. Instead, it concludes, we should be developing a mode of policymaking that is iterative, research-informed, cooperative (rather than merely ‘consultative’), strategic and that produces a long-term framework for enabling change.

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The significance of the changing nature of higher education (HE) in Europe has been largely ignored by institutions in the UK due to variants of either Euroscepticism or a belief that somehow British HE is unique. This article argues that these attitudes are hampering future engagement between HE providers across Europe and those in the UK. It is limiting the potential for global reach which the changes to the European Higher Education Area offers HE providers. The article sets out the opportunities presented by the Bologna Process and the Lisbon declaration suggesting that the future of higher education in Europe provides many more opportunities than has been previously recognised by UK policy makers and institutional leaders.

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Lifelong learning is a big idea, but not a new idea. If lifelong learning networks (LLN) are to live up to the name, they have to operate effectively in what is already a crowded field. In the UK we know that 90 per cent of students with two or more A-Levels go on to higher education. We also know that only 45 per cent of those with vocational qualifications at this level proceed. Lifelong learning networks are being proposed as a solution to this problem. This article sets out the prospects of creating an effective system of tertiary education for the UK, which will win more than grudging support from all of the necessary players; in other words a system about which we can feel not only confident, but also proud and affectionate. It argues that we need to guard against the idea being just another initiative. It highlights some areas for hope and suggests possible ways forward to ensure that a wide range of learners, not just those with A-levels are able to progress through the [higher education] HE system.

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This international peer-reviewed biennial journal explored education policy and practice as it affected access to learning, both in the UK and internationally. This journal is no longer being published. Show less

In introducing lifelong learning networks (LLNs), HEFCE [Higher Education Funding Council for England] is encouraging demonstrator models to try out the philosophy behind them. The Greater Manchester Strategic Alliance [GMSA], a group of all six HEIs [higher education institutions] and 15 FECs [further education colleges] in Greater Manchester, has been working collaboratively for two years, focusing on progression, credit frameworks, funding transparency in indirect partnerships and the development of foundation degrees. The GMSA has funding to prepare to become a LLN.

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