Transcript 6. ASHE 2006. (MSPowerpoint 30KB)

American Models and European
Policies: the Career of the ShortCycle Foundation Degree
Gareth Parry
University of Sheffield, UK
Between America and Europe
•
•
•
•
•
rival models of higher education
markers of English ‘exceptionalism’
America: lesson-drawing
Europe: decision-making
few grounded studies
Why the foundation degree?
Policy translation, recontexualisation and
enactment over 25 years:
• American imprint
• English experiment
• European alignment
Some revisionist reminders
• varieties of sub-baccalaureate qualification
• routes to mass higher education
• overlapping sectors of higher and further
education
• multiple missions of further education
• serious and active in Europe
Insinuation (1980s): American
models and British problems
How to move from elite to mass higher
education by diversifying:
• mission
• funding
• standards
There cannot be American solutions to British
problems … But the more this expansion is taken by
the elite selective system, the more it tends to become
a system of mass higher education, with less money
per capita, less autonomy, more central intervention
and control, and lower standards … One might ask
whether it might not be preferable to upgrade further
education to the status of mass higher education
than to downgrade some universities and polys to
perform the same functions (Trow 1987)
I believe we that we may be approaching a fundamental
choice between two different patterns of evolution. One
route towards mass higher education could be through
an increasingly state funded and therefore state
organised ‘system’ of higher education. There is a real
possibility that this will be the course followed on the
Continent … The other route, that I would prefer, would
see the movement towards mass higher education
accompanied by greater differentiation and
diversification in a market-led and multi-funded setting
(Baker 1989)
Expansion (early 1990s):
Robertson and a culture of credit
• proposal for an associate degree, as a new
interim new-year academic qualification
• set within a national credit framework
• able to attract dual accreditation
• delivery in further education colleges as
well as universities
Rejection (late 1990s): Dearing
and the Scottish example
• renewed expansion at sub-baccalaureate
levels based on existing qualifications
• special mission for further education
colleges
• a national framework of qualifications
Domestication (new century):
Blair and the English experiment
• launch of the foundation degree, as a twoyear work-focused qualification
• coupled with 50% target
• free-standing, with transfer
• university-employer-college
• part of a new vocational ladder
Harmonisation (new century):
Europe and the Bologna process
• the governance of knowledge
• three cycles, with bachelors as the first
degree
• European qualification frameworks
• the place of short-cycle qualifications
A distinctly English creation?
• a response to unplanned expansion and
market failure
• a hybrid qualification for ‘the middle third’
• a public-private configuration
• a short-order, short-life award, with local
circulation and vocational horizon
For a copy of the accompanying paper,
contact: [email protected]