A Vision for 20 Years: The Learning Society

A vision for 20 years: the learning society

1. Our title, Higher Education in the learning society, reflects the vision that informs this report. Over the next 20 years, the United Kingdom must create a society committed to learning throughout life. That commitment will be required from individuals, the state, employers and providers of education and training. Education is life enriching and desirable in its own right. It is fundamental to the achievement of an improved quality of life in the UK.

2. It should, therefore, be a national policy objective to be world class both in learning at all levels and in a range of research of different kinds. In higher education, this aspiration should be realised through a new compact involving institutions and their staff, students, government, employers and society in general. We see the historic boundaries between vocational and academic education breaking down, with increasingly active partnerships between higher education institutions and the worlds of industry, commerce and public service. In such a compact, each party should recognise its obligation to the others.

3. Over the next 20 years, we see higher education gaining in strength through the pursuit of quality and a commitment to high standards. Higher education will make a distinctive contribution to the development of a learning society through teaching, scholarship and research. National need and demand for higher education will drive a resumed expansion of student numbers - young and mature, full-time and part-time. But over the next two decades, higher education will face challenges as well as opportunities. The effectiveness of its response will determine its future.

4. That future will require higher education in the UK to:

o encourage and enable all students - whether they demonstrate the highest intellectual potential or whether they have struggled to reach the threshold of higher education - to achieve beyond their expectations;

o safeguard the rigour of its awards, ensuring that UK qualifications meet the needs of UK students and have standing throughout the world;

o be at the leading edge of world practice in effective learning and teaching;

o undertake research that matches the best in the world, and make its benefits available to the nation;

o ensure that its support for regional and local communities is at least comparable to that provided by higher education in competitor nations;

o sustain a culture which demands disciplined thinking, encourages curiosity, challenges existing ideas and generates new ones;

o be part of the conscience of a democratic society, founded on respect for the rights of the individual and the responsibilities of the individual to society as a whole;

o be explicit and clear in how it goes about its business, be accountable to students and to society, and seek continuously to improve its own performance.

5. To achieve this, higher education will depend on:

o professional, committed members of staff who are appropriately trained, respected and rewarded;

o a diverse range of autonomous, well-managed institutions with a commitment to excellence in the achievement of their distinctive missions.

6. The higher education sector will comprise a community of free-standing institutions dedicated to the creation of a learning society and the pursuit of excellence in their diverse missions. It will include institutions of world renown and it must be a conscious objective of national policy that the UK should continue to have such institutions. Other institutions will see their role as supporting regional or local needs. Some will see themselves as essentially research oriented; others will be predominantly engaged in teaching. But all will be committed to scholarship and to excellence in the management of learning and teaching.

7. Higher education is fundamental to the social, economic and cultural health of the nation. It will contribute not only through the intellectual development of students and by equipping them for work, but also by adding to the worldХs store of knowledge and understanding, fostering culture for its own sake, and promoting the values that characterise higher education: respect for evidence; respect for individuals and their views; and the search for truth. Equally, part of its task will be to accept a duty of care for the wellbeing of our democratic civilisation, based on respect for the individual and respect by the individual for the conventions and laws which provide the basis of a civilised society.

8. There is growing interdependence between students, institutions, the economy, employers and the state. We believe that this bond needs to be more clearly recognised by each party, as a compact which makes clear what each contributes and what each gains. Our view of the compact is summarised in Table 1. The Committee's approach to its work

9. From our first meeting we recognised the scale of the task facing us. We persuaded a number of external members to join working groups to broaden the range of expertise available to us and to help us to advance our work quickly. We gathered as much evidence as possible and heard a wide range of views on the future of higher education. The reports published with our main report describe the outcomes of that work.

10. Throughout our work we received tremendous support and commitment to our task from those within and outside higher education. We cannot name all those who helped us, but we are greatly indebted to every one of them.

Higher education today

11. Higher education in the UK can take justifiable pride in what it has achieved over the last 30 years. It has expanded opportunities: 1.6 million people are students in higher education. Almost a third of young people now go into higher education from school and college, and there are even more mature students than younger ones. Higher education has adapted as the needs of students and other clients have changed. It has maintained its international standing in research, introduced new approaches to learning and teaching and to quality assurance, and has greatly improved its cost-effectiveness. It continues to produce first degree graduates quickly and with low drop-out rates compared to other countries. All this has been achieved through the commitment of those who work in higher education.

12. After a very rapid rise in the number of students between 1988 and 1993, the Government placed a cap on any further