Higher Education and Lifelong Learning

International Perspectives on Change

Hans Schuetze, Maria Slowey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135132286
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Responding to the emerging needs of lifelong learners arguably represents one of the most fundamental challenges facing higher education systems of the countries of the developing world. At the start of the new century the concept of Lifelong Learning may indeed be counted as one of the the key organising concepts underlying public policy in many countries. The interpretation of the concept, however, remains highly contested.
This timely book throws new light on the dramatic changes taking place in higher education through an exploration of the participation of "non-traditional" students in ten countries. Among others, the following areas are explored:
* the complex reality behind the statistics on participation in higher education in five European countries (Austria, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom), North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand
* contrasting perceptions of lifelong learning
* changing patterns of participation by adults in higher education
* national and institutional policies and innovations to accommodate non-traditional students and new forms of study
* conclusions for policy, practice and research
Higher Education for Lifelong Learners will be of interest to academics, researchers and students involved with higher education, lifelong learning, and comparative education as well as policy makers, educational managers and administrators. The contributions reveal a remarkable transformation in the student body and in the way learners pursue their studies, highlighting the international impact of increasing marketisation and differentiation on the nature of the higher education accessible to potential lifelong learners.

Part I

Introduction

Comparative perspectives

1 Traditions and new directions in higher education

A comparative perspective on non-traditional students and lifelong learners

Hans G. Schuetze and Maria Slowey

Adult learners and non-traditional students: background to a comparative study

Higher education in the developed countries underwent significant change, if not transformation, in the last decade of the twentieth century. A massive increase in student enrolment was accompanied by increasing differentiation of higher education systems including, in some countries, the rise of private higher education- trends which appear likely to shape developments for the foreseeable future. The new demand is largely based on two elements. First, structural changes in economic and social systems which are increasingly grounded in scientific and technological knowledge, and are widely perceived as requiring a better qualified workforce. Second, there is a growing acceptance of the principle that education, especially higher education, should no longer be confined to the young but needs to be spread out over the lifetime of individuals. The demand is further fuelled by a continuing focus on issues of access and equity both from a policy perspective and as a response to pressure from social movements.

In the 1990s, student numbers increased by 40 percent on average across developed countries (OECD 1999). For example, in Sweden and New Zealand, enrolment grew by 41 percent, in Ireland by 51 percent, and in the UK by a dramatic 81 percent. Other countries where enrolment had been strong already in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the US and Canada, grew less, proportionally. The growth has been largely driven by youth participation (participation rates of the eighteen to twenty-four population has increased by 70 percent), although demand came also from adults of all ages (the rate of young adults, aged twenty-five to twenty-nine years, increased by almost 50 percent.). For example, Ireland is a case where most first time entrants are young, whereas in Canada, New Zealand and the UK significant numbers of both young and older students enter, a pattern that the OECD analysts (1999 p. 72) call the ‘basis of a lifelong learning model’.

In connection with this recent wave of expansion, this volume is concerned with two main themes which dominate the academic, policy and popular debates on higher education at the start of the new millennium. The first of these relates to the thesis that higher education which once served a small segment of the population, the ‘elite’, has been transformed to a ‘mass’ or even ‘universal’ system of higher education (Trow 1973). As a result, the problem of ‘access for all’ to higher education – for long the unfulfilled promise of an egalitarian society – seems finally to be resolved, and the distinction between ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ student no longer meaningful. The second theme concerns the concept of lifelong learning which dominates national and international educational policy discussions. The thesis here is that the perceived universality of access means that the role of higher education in achieving the objectives commonly associated with the concept of lifelong learning is well developed, particularly as higher education comes to be defined more broadly within the context of a ‘post compulsory’, ‘post secondary’ or ‘tertiary’ education system (OECD 1998).

The reality, of course, is not so straightforward, and, as we will show, there are good grounds for challenging both of these contentions.

We set the scene for this volume by outlining the methodology and basis on which the ten country case studies were prepared. As change in higher education cannot be seen in isolation, but is part of a wider transformation associated with debates about the movement from ‘industrialised’ to ‘post-industrialised’ societies, we preface our discussion of the key concepts of lifelong learning and non-traditional students by reference to this broader context. In the light of these discussions, we summarise the main findings from the country reports and make tentative moves towards outlining a framework of how the changes in higher education towards a system of lifelong learning might be conceptualised.

Objectives, methodology and scope

This volume builds on an earlier study undertaken by the authors under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 1987). That earlier study concentrated on adults in higher education, comparing the levels and the conditions of adult participation across the same ten countries. We found then that adult students (defined as those aged twenty-five or over on entry to higher education) could in effect be taken as a proxy for non-traditional learners.

Although we concluded that the typical adult in higher education was ‘more likely to be there because of previous educational advantages rather than disadvantages’ (ibid. p. 37) their minority status in most systems, culturally as well as statistically, was key in identifying them as non-traditional. This minority status was accentuated by associated factors such as mode of study (frequently part-time) employment status and family circumstances.

There were significant differences in the levels of adult participation across the countries in the 1987 study and, while the main emphasis was on age of entry, account was also taken of social class, gender and ethnicity. For analytic purposes we developed a typology of countries along a continuum relating to the levels of adult participation in higher education.

• Those countries with relatively high levels of participation by adult learners and demonstrating a relatively high degree of flexibility in relation to entry criteria and study patterns; this category included Sweden and the United States.
• Those where there were significant, but lower, proportions of adult learners across the system as a whole, and where adult students were frequently located in open universities or dedicated centres of adult or continuing education within ‘mainstream’ institutions; this category included Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK.
• Those at the other end of the continuum with very low levels of adult par-ticipation in higher education (frequently less than 5 percent); this category included Austria, Germany, Ireland and Japan.

The present volume revisits policies and developments in the same ten countries just over a decade later, taking into account the greatly changed context of higher education. The objective of undertaking a follow-up study a little more than a decade later was twofold. First, we wanted to record progress towards participation by what had been called ‘non-traditional students’ in the 1980s in order to see to what extent the new wave of expansion in the 1990s had included students from non-traditional backgrounds and whether or not they were still under-represented. At the same time we were interested in seeing how the pattern of participation of ‘traditional’ students had been changing. We presumed that changes in both the socio-economic environment and the structure and delivery system of tertiary education would have an impact on the way students pursue their studies. We realised that the earlier exclusive focus on adults was too narrow and that we had to include other under-represented groups in order to understand the obstacles and challenges that non-traditional students are facing.

Second, we were aware that the exclusive focus on universities that we had chosen for the 1987 study was no longer appropriate given the far-reaching differentiation of the post-secondary education systems and the fact that, in most countries, the majority of under-rep resented groups were enrolled in non-university institutions and programmes rather than ‘traditional’ universities. Thus, the new study looked at universities, colleges and technical institutes as well as programmes that were delivered in conjunction with external partners.

The ten countries that were included in the two studies were all OECD members. Of these, five were (Western) European, belonging also to the EU, (Austria, Germany, Ireland, Sweden and the UK), three from the Pacific Rim (Australia, Japan and New Zealand) and two from North America (Canada and the United States). Classified according to their cultural rather than geographical dimension, six of the countries could be described as being of an Anglo-Saxon/American tradition, three belong to a (Northern and Central) continental European tradition, and Japan as a blend of its own cultural roots and traditions with some adapted features from Western countries.

We are fully aware of the limitations in this selection of countries. However, it did seem logical to focus again on the ten countries that had formed the main focus of the earlier analysis, in order to see whether (and how) progress has been made with respect to the inclusion of under-represented groups of learners and, more generally, to a system of tertiary education that is conducive to lifelong learning. Thus the emphasis is clearly on countries with highly developed higher education systems. With reluctance we decided we could not expand the original group to include to include case studies from Southern or Eastern Europe or those from the developing world.

In our view comparative analysis yields insights into the real nature of the changed systems underlying the policy rhetoric and barrage of statistical evidence. However, the value of comparative analysis depends to a considerable extent on the development and application of a common conceptual framework. This framework needs to be sufficiently sensitive not to mask real areas of difference, and flexible enough to allow the individual case studies to contribute in distinctive ways to a greater understanding of what are very complex phenomena. Like the 1987 OECD study, the present study is based on national case studies by authors from these countries, some of whom had previously been involved in the 1987 study. The authors met several times over 1997 and 1998 in order to discuss the common analytic framework, but it was understood that individual authors would have a choice of the particular emphasis of their study depending on the specific situations of their respective countries and their own personal perspectives. As coordinators, we were not disappointed in our hope that new insights would be generated by bringing together researchers from two different, although complementary backgrounds: higher education and adult education.

In most cases, the country studies were based almost entirely on secondary data, ranging from statistical and survey data to published research reports and general literature. In several cases, some primary data were used, mostly in the form of expert interviews. In only one case, Austria, the research team launched a major empirical study surveying some 8,000 students about their socio-economic situation and pattern of studying.

Not only have the numbers of students, staff, and institutions dramatically increased in these ten countries, there have also been numerous structural and organisational changes, including the diversification of higher education systems through the establishment of new types of institutions, programmes and courses of study. Probably more significant for the mission and the internal lives of higher education institutions, especially the universities, are other changes of a qualitative kind such as more flexible provision, new approaches to teaching and learning, and an increasing emphasis upon the evaluation and certification of learning. New forms of knowledge creation and dissemination, greater access to information sources, the use of new media and new channels of communication, the development of complex partnerships with both external providers and user groups, and the growing role of education markets are all factors that have a major impact on where, what, how and why tertiary/post-secondary students learn.

Two widely shared and interrelated assumptions are associated with these developments. First, with the participation rates in tertiary education in many countries approaching, or exceeding, 50 per cent of the school-leaving age group, it is often argued that issues of access and equity have essentially been solved, and that now there are opportunities for all who have the ability and the desire to pursue their education beyond secondary school. Second, and perhaps more contentiously, it is held that high participation levels mean that the role of higher education in selection and social reproduction is largely a feature of the past.

We do not agree with these assumptions. Rather, we believe that ‘expansion has not been sufficient to reduce differences in rates of access of learners from different social and economic groups’ (OECD 1999 p. 69) and that there is a need for special measures to be put into place, both in terms of public policies and institutional practice, that benefit especially underrepresented groups.

Our conceptual framework can be characterised as a ‘dual’ lens. Firstly, at a general level, the country studies examine in some detail, and with different emphases, the interrelationship between competing interpretations of the concept of lifelong learning and the dramatically changing features of higher education. Alongside the schools, the work place, and the community, higher education represents just one element in any strategy for achieving the objective of lifelong learning for all (OECD 1996). Within this prescribed arena, however, the development of mass higher education while not synonymous with a lifelong learning system, is, in our view, a necessary precondition of its realisation.

The accelerating ‘massification’ refers largely to quantitative aspects – more students, more academic staff, more types of institutions, more programmes – but these quantitative changes have not necessarily been accompanied by a qualitative transformation of the academy itself (Barnett 1992, Duke 1992, Scott 1995). In other words, while there have been changes and innovation across the whole higher education sector, by and large the traditional institutions, especially the longer-established and more elite universities, have tried to accommodate growing numbers of students while preserving their traditional academic values, institutional structures and processes. More fundamental changes tend to be located mainly in the newer, more vocationally orientated institutions which, as most of the country studies in this volume confirm, continue to be ranked lower in terms of conventional indicators of prestige. We should of course not be surprised at this. As Halsey points out, institutional differentiation is socially controlled ‘so that elite universities … remain the cultural possession of traditionally advantaged groups’ (Halsey 1992 p. 15).

Our second conceptual lens turns attention to those who form the primary rationale of any educational system and corresponding analyses: the students. Who are the ‘non-traditional’ students? What is the social composition of the groups that have fuelled the expansion of higher (tertiary) education? To what extent do they comprise sections of the population traditionally under-represented in higher education? Exploring different conceptions of ‘non-traditional’ students in different countries, and tracing changes over the last fifteen years or so, places a major question mark over the notion of a ‘traditional’ student within the present context of higher education. The evidence from many of the countries in this volume points to increasingly diverse patterns of work and study as many...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• PART I Introduction: comparative perspectives
• PART II Europe
• PART III North America
• PART IV Australia, Japan and New Zealand
• Index