Professor Mark Taylor Dean, Warwick Business School Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick Our Education and Student Experience

External Context o The challenges ……………….. o Higher student fees o Student satisfaction o Higher education seen as career progression o Decrease in government HE funding alongside increased regulation o Widening access, widening participation o New providers entering the sector o Global competition o “The squeezed middle” o UK Border Agency controls o International collaboration o MOOCs & SPOCs o REF and Rankings o …………… 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 (source: HEFCE 2014)

The New Public Management o First Thatcher administration – ‘neoliberal managerialist’ o Blair administration – ‘technocratic managerialist’ o 1985 Jarratt Report o 1997 Dearing Report o 2010 Browne Report o 2011 BIS white paper: Students at the Heart of the System

‘Students at the Heart of the System’ o 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’ o 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’ o Increasingly, ‘institutional reputation’ has become synonymous with rankings and league table performance o Newspaper rankings, Guardian, Times etc o Reliant on data supplied via multiple sources including the National Student Survey (NSS) – focussed on the ‘student experience’ o PTES – Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey o 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? o Attainment of qualifications o A high degree of employability and high earning potential upon completion of their degree

(Current) Students at the Heart of the System o Consumer model makes the student experience into something determined by what the university offers rather than by what students can bring o “…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) o Feedback framed as an issue of assessment rather than of supporting and facilitating student learning o 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 o Universities are increasingly incentivised to provide what students want, not what they need o Some students may want an Easy A, but need a good education o Potential to impact standards negatively o Ignores needs of other stakeholders, e.g.: o Employers o Current students later in life o Society at large

(Current) Students at the Heart of the System o Student experience = joint responsibility of student and HEI o HEI responsibility to provide Intellectual climate Facilities Teaching standards o Student responsibility to Actively engage in learning development (e.g. through active engagement with feedback)

The Challenge o Government policy puts student at the heart of the system o May be to the detriment of other stakeholders o May be to the detriment of other elements of the university offer

Unbundling of the university offer o Knowledge production o Knowledge dissemination o Student experience o Signalling and accreditation

The essential dialectic of the university o Origin of the university in late mediaeval Europe o Deriving from monastic tradition of scholarship o The need to develop professional class of clergy, public administrators, lawyers, physicians and business stewards as Europe emerged from the Dark Ages o But also more purely intellectual in the elevation of learning as a means of human improvement as an essential part of the European Renaissance

Raphael’s “School of Athens”

Tomorrow’s University: Possible Futures

The Industrial University o Large-scale enrolment o National and global recruitment o Large online and blended eLearning agenda using and adapting globally developed content o Largely a teaching institution o Offering: knowledge dissemination signalling student experience (of a kind)

The Virtual University o Large-scale enrolment o National and global recruitment o 100% online eLearning agenda using and adapting globally developed content o Largely a teaching institution o Offering: Knowledge dissemination Signalling Virtual student experience o A variant of the Industrial University

The Elite University o Large but highly selective enrolment o Combination of on-campus and blended teaching and learning o Global partnerships and reach o Online content setting the international standard and licenced for use by other universities o World-class research base, both basic and applied o Offering: knowledge production knowledge dissemination signalling student experience

The Regional University o Enrolment largely regional, with high number of students living at home o Largely on-campus teaching with some blended learning o Strong benefits to the local economy o Solid research base with emphasis on applications to the regional economy and collaborative research with regional industry o Offering: knowledge production knowledge dissemination signalling reduced student experience

The Boutique University o Small and selective enrolment o Teaching may be highly specialised and vocational (e.g. law, business) or liberal arts o Largely on-campus teaching with some blended learning licenced from Elite University providers o Predominantly a teaching institution o Offering: knowledge dissemination signalling student experience

The Non-University University o 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 o Offering: knowledge dissemination (some) virtual student experience (some) signalling

Aristotle again …

…he is not actually pointing down …

….. he is gesturing in three dimensions….

Thank you

Professor Mark Taylor Dean, Warwick Business School Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Warwick Our Education and Student Experience