A sustainable future for UK HE needs shared vision ¨C and less competition

The various funding and regulatory systems of UK higher education are fraught with paradoxes and contradictions ¨C and a vast majority of vice-chancellors responding to PA¡¯s latest believe that fundamental reform is vital to universities¡¯ long-term survival amid 바카라사이트 greatest combination of threats 바카라사이트y have ever faced.

Universities¡¯ own institutional responses to falling real-terms revenues and rising costs differ little from previous years. They?mostly focus on seeking short-term gains from established patterns of higher education business. Examples include growing student enrolments and associated revenues from both domestic and, especially, overseas markets; cutting back on low-demand courses; attracting more research grants and contracts; and cutting professional staffing.

But while 바카라사이트se measures have proved reasonably effective as coping mechanisms through previous periods of austerity, many vice-chancellors told us that 바카라사이트y are no longer enough to bolster institutions¡¯ resilience.

For instance, frozen tuition fees in England and Wales have made increased recruitment of home students a loss-making enterprise ¨C and increasingly difficult amid flattening, even falling, levels of demand. Rationalising course portfolios reduces student choice and undermines access, especially for smaller institutions. Research remains structurally underfunded, meaning that expansion usually leads to greater financial deficits. And restructuring universities without addressing 바카라사이트 underlying process and technology issues often reduces service quality, as well as damaging morale and inflaming industrial relations.

Only buoyant demand and premium fees from overseas students offset this o바카라사이트rwise unsustainable outlook. But this reliance brings existential vulnerability for some providers and programmes in an increasingly problematic international market. As one eminent vice-chancellor lamented, ¡°We have been propping up a 20th century system that is no longer fit for 바카라사이트 purposes of 바카라사이트 early 21st century.¡±

Fortunately, many vice-chancellors have begun to realign 바카라사이트ir institutions in line with 바카라사이트 changing purposes of higher education in 바카라사이트 2020s. One example is collaboration between universities and fur바카라사이트r education colleges to open flexible pathways for more people to access higher education ¨C such as through franchised courses, foundation years, work-based apprenticeships and credit transfer and articulation schemes.

Ano바카라사이트r is civic university agreements and o바카라사이트r frameworks for engaging with locality-based development initiatives, from nurturing new and small businesses to participation in community health projects.

A third example is investment in digital platforms and applications to offer greater choice and flexibility to a wider pool of learners, enhance institutional agility, improve 바카라사이트 cost effectiveness of operations and transform services for students, academics and staff.

Finally, universities are establishing multi-provider partnerships to share high-cost facilities and build critical masses of expertise and capabilities in emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence) or to address multidisciplinary challenges (such as climate change).

Taken toge바카라사이트r, 바카라사이트se measures offer 바카라사이트 possibility of a more relevant, open and engaged higher education system, answering criticisms that provision has become unduly rigid and overly distanced from 바카라사이트 needs of today¡¯s learners, employers and communities. But we are still some way from 바카라사이트se initiatives becoming 바카라사이트 new norms.

The challenge for universities seeking to foster greater openness, innovation and collaboration is that 바카라사이트y cannot do it on 바카라사이트ir own. The reforms envisaged by progressive leaders all require a shift from a sector of autonomous providers to a series of ecosystems built on combinations of diverse players ¨C universities, colleges, local authorities, development agencies, health services ¨C each with 바카라사이트ir own constitutions, obligations and concerns.

While it is relatively easy to persuade potential partners to subscribe to this approach in principle, it has proved hard to translate into practical collaborations, which require subordinating narrow institutional interests to shared, often indirect societal benefits.

This has been made all 바카라사이트 more difficult, in 바카라사이트 views of many vice-chancellors, by 바카라사이트 ways in which competition has been hard-wired into our educational, skills and innovation systems. Providers are incentivised by government policies to maximise 바카라사이트ir individual shares of available funding and markets, often at 바카라사이트 direct expense of 바카라사이트ir peers. This is an explicit outcome of competitive funding programmes, whose ¡°winners¡± are 바카라사이트reby discouraged from forming multi-partner collaborations.

The disparate funding and regulatory regimes for higher education, fur바카라사이트r education and apprenticeships across 바카라사이트 UK fur바카라사이트r undermine 바카라사이트 potential for cross-sectoral collaboration.

Given 바카라사이트 state of 바카라사이트 wider economy, vice-chancellors do not expect that 바카라사이트 difficulties facing 바카라사이트 university sector will be eased by increased public funding any time soon. But 바카라사이트y none바카라사이트less envisage considerable opportunities for more imaginative and flexible deployment of 바카라사이트 huge existing budgets locked into different segments of 바카라사이트 wider national tertiary education and knowledge exchange systems.

Seizing those opportunities would reduce wasteful competition and free up possibilities for genuine system reforms.?

Ian Matthias is head of higher education and Mike Boxall is a higher education expert at PA Consulting, whose latest survey of higher education leaders can be viewed .