The Cutting Society for Research Into Higher Education
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 415 728 HE 030 747 AUTHOR Duke, Chris TITLE The Learning University. Towards a New Paradigm? The Cutting Edge Series. INSTITUTION Society for Research into Higher Education, Ltd., London (England). ISBN ISBN-0-335-15653-3 PUB DATE 1992-00-00 NOTE 155p. AVAILABLE FROM Taylor and Francis Publishers, 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007-1598; phone: 800-821-8312; fax: 215-785-5515 ($29.95). PUB TYPE Books (010) Opinion Papers (120) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC07 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Change Strategies; *Continuing Education; Educational Change; Faculty Development; Foreign Countries; Government School Relationship; Higher Education; *Institutional Mission; *Lifelong Learning; Mission Statements; Models; Organizational Objectives; Professional Continuing Education; Resistance to Change; Staff Development; Trend Analysis IDENTIFIERS *United Kingdom ABSTRACT This book examines the changing role of institutions of higher education within the context of bids made by British universities to the Universities Funding Council for funding, the changed organizational structures of British polytechnics, and the increasing importance of continuing education. Emphasis is on the new role of the university as a center for continuing and lifelong learning. The first chapter examines old assumptions about universities, the new paradigm, and the change process. Chapter 2 considers aspects of the new language of higher education. Chapter 3 discusses mission statements, aims and objectives of universities, especially regarding lifelong learning and continuing/recurring education. Chapter 4 focuses on the new structures and arrangements for incorporating principles of continuing education into established university teaching. The fifth chapter discusses compatibilities and tensions between traditional and new models and the following chapter considers issues of access, quality, accountability, and standards. Chapter 7 is about staff development, seen as "internal continuing education" within each university. The final chapter asks how far changes resulting from university aspirations to provide continuing and lifelong education are likely to go and whether this emerging paradigm is being realized. (Contains approximately 175 references.) (DB) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** The Cutting Edge iver Towardsa New Paradigm? PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Taylor & Francis TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1/This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy Chris Duke BEST COPY AVAILABLE 2 The Learning University THE CUTTING EDGE Series Editors: Susan Weil, Head of Higher Education Development and Fellow in Organizational Learning at the Office for Public Management, and Visting Lecturer for the Centre for Higher Education Studies, University of London. Malcolm Tight, Senior Lecturer in Continuing Education, University of Warwick. This series deals with critical issues and significant developments in continuing education, focusing on its impact on higher education. Current titles in the series: Tom Bourner et al.: Part-Time Students and their Experience of Higher Education Chris Duke: The Learning University David Smith and Michael Saunders: Other Routes: Part-Time Higher Education Policy The Learning University Towards a New Paradigm? CHRIS DUKE The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press 5 Published by SRHE and Open University Press Celtic Court 22 Ballmoor Buckingham MKI8IXW and 190o Frost Road, SuiteIoi Bristol, PA 19007, USA First published 1992 Copyright © Chris Duke 1992 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without written permission from the publisher. A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Duke, C. (Christopher) The learning university: towards a new paradigm? / Chris Duke. p. cm. (Cutting edge) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-335-15654-1 ISBN 0-335-15653-3 (pbk.) I. Education, Higher Great Britain.I. Title.II. Series: Cutting edge (Buckingham, England) LA637D77 1992 378.41 dc2o 91-44438 CIP Typeset by Graphicraft Typesetters Limited, Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk 6 Contents Series Editor's Introduction vii Preface xi List of Abbreviations xvii 1 Old Assumptions and New Practices 1 2 Change and Higher Educationthe New Discourse 15 3 Mission, Aims and ObjectivesWhat May Be New? 28 4Out of the BoxContinuing Education University-wide 45 5 Finishing School or Service StationWhat Mix? 62 6Access, Quality and SuccessOld and New Criteria 76 7 Staff Development and Organizational Learning 95 8The Fallacy of the Ivory Tower 1 1 o Appendix 121 Bibliography 123 Index 130 The Society for Research into Higher Education 135 Series Editor's Introduction The Cutting Edge series was established to examine how developments related to access and continuing education in their broadest sense are throwing into sharper relief fundamental questions about higher education itself. In other words, how is what is happening at what some might call the margins in fact transforming the mainstream? The book uses as a starting-point the 1991-2 to 1994-5 bids made by the universities to the Universities Funding Council (UFC) for funding generally. Continuing education (CE) is often, as the author argues, a 'conduit for the entry of new ideas and new language into the teaching life of the university'. It was therefore fitting that these bids provided the means for testing the water of the new UFC regime. The author offers a thorough and interesting analysis of these data, against a political background of discontinuity and uncertainty. He relates trends and issues evident in the bids to current debates and developments in adult, continuing and higher education a task for which his own background makes him well suited. He provides a comprehensive picture of the terrain: from questions about the HE curriculum and how it is to be understood and delivered in future (propelled by, for example, credit accumulation and transfer, resource constraints, the influence of non-traditional and non- standard students and projected expansion of numbers) to quality, resource and management issues. The outcomes of these endeavours alone would have made a suitable publication for the series. But, the author goes further than this. He clearly demonstrates how the nature, aims and objectives of universities as por- trayed through these particular bids are 'sharply at variance with what has come to be regarded as the traditional model of elite teaching and frontier research'. But he also uses the firm scaffolding of his analysis of the bids as a vehicle for illuminating questions that are far bolder. Relentlessly yet thoughtfully, the author questions how clear and purpose- ful universities are about shifting their energies into continuing education alongside initial education, and just what this will entail. In doing so, he nudges the reader towards a deeper understanding of how and why the very idea of the university is being implicitly transformed, because of but also in viii The Learning University spite of current political agendas. He examines the pressures on universities to become more responsive to change within society as a whole, and to the needs and aspirations of a broader base of learners. He speaks of the need for a 'reallocation of educational effort to promote learning throughout life'. But he provocatively and rightfully questions whether such developments can be kept tightly reined at the margins of a front-end traditional image of the university, never really touching the academic tribes' and territories' (Becher 1989) taken for granted ways of thinking, behaving and attaching value. The author also examines current notions of managerialism and efficiency. He suggests that pressures in this direction may be combining to centralize the development and management of continuing education. However, as they are currently understood, they may work against government aims for expan- sion and continuing education. His metaphor of paradigm shift is therefore most apt. Our most implicit and fundamental sets of beliefs and values, and how we assume they relate to each other, whether we speak about management, quality or resources, are all demanding reconceptualization in light of current and projected trends. Old criteria may be fundamentally at odds with new visions, and therefore have limited validity. At the very least, they can no longer be taken for granted. Moreover, he suggests that those universities, that adhere to their traditional aims and objectives in the coming years will experience a lot more internal grinding and jarring as the nature and meaning of the new paradigm are experienced and become clearer through that experience. The author offers his own thoughts