Can online education better support government aims now than when it was a policy focus?
Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst
By the time you read this, the UK general election will either be well into its second half, or based on all the predictions and polls, the UK will have a new government. In the last few weeks, the limited number of outlets covering UK higher education have been largely dominated by election coverage.
Some commentators have noted, with good reason, that education, and higher education specifically, has not been that important to this election campaign or, by extension, to the electorate. Higher education does get a mention in manifestos, and there’s a sense that something needs to be done, but there’s not a lot of detail and it feels pretty peripheral.
Online distance education doesn’t get a mention, nor would you expect it to. However, I recently stumbled upon an old thesis exploring EU policy on distance education, and it was interesting to discover that the 1992 Maastricht Treaty committed the EU to ‘encouraging the development of distance education’. Clearly, there was a period when distance learning played some part in policy discourse, but I think it’s fair to say that was pretty short-lived.
That thesis, in a sense, highlights a period in which there was a sense of promise around distance education, but arguably there were not the conditions for that promise to be really fulfilled. To a certain extent, we would probably be better having those discussions now than then, but policy focus moves on and online distance education is yesterday’s news in policy terms.
However, I would argue it’s as relevant to some of the aims expressed during this election period as it has been in the past for a few main reasons.
More than one way to earn while you learn
One of the key education policies of the Conservative government over the period it’s been in power has been apprenticeships and most notably for higher education it introduced and has strongly advocated for degree apprenticeships. Unfortunately, it’s been a form of negative advocacy that has often involved emphasising what it judges as the negative aspects of the alternatives (i.e. degrees in certain subjects) to promote its new product.
This has led to the Conservatives overhyping apprenticeships as the grand solution to the perceived ills of higher education. Although I think the introduction of degree apprenticeships has been a good thing, and they have been described as a success story by Universities UK, my issue lies in the government's narrow and one-dimensional focus on “earn while you learn” options in higher education.
Online education has an excellent pedigree as a format that supports learning while you earn, and although it obviously does so on a different basis to an apprenticeship, it’s a format that should have featured more in this discussion. There’s a role for online education in disrupting the dichotomy that has sometimes been presented as either going to university or doing an apprenticeship.
Fulfilling current and future needs
One of the things prominently featured in the current and probably most past manifestos is the need to educate and develop people to fulfil professional roles now and in the future. The Labour manifesto states this plainly, saying that we have “an economy without the necessary skills”.
Whatever we think about this diagnosis, the emphasis on developing the required skills and knowledge can’t simply be about young people and young adults going through our education system. Adults will also need opportunities to develop skills and knowledge to meet current and future needs, especially during a period of acute financial pressures. Therefore, more accessible alternatives to traditional university-based education will be needed if aims around the current and future workforce of the nation are to be met.
Online education’s ability to support these aims is not acknowledged as much as it should be, but neither should its importance be overstated. However, it is the latter rather than the former that seems to be the bigger problem here. Whilst there is definitely a role for online education in delivering existing university courses and programmes, there are also opportunities for greater synergy between online education, universities, and industry.
Given how the number of market entries into online education is growing in UK higher education, an online education strategy that is more explicitly directed towards industry and in partnership with it would certainly be a more differentiated entry point. Sometimes it feels as though it is mainly private online education companies that are aware of this opportunity and need, and are seeking to tackle this themselves or are being the initiators or enablers for universities to go in this direction.
Supporting development in key fields
Some question higher education institutions' capabilities to deliver the kind of education and training that will lead to the development of people to fulfil professional roles now and in the future. However, higher education institutions are varied and generally play an important role in the continued professional development in key fields such as healthcare and education.
Online courses and programmes are common in these subject areas, particularly at postgraduate level, but it still feels as though online education can play a greater role in supporting people’s development in key professions. One of Labour’s key pledges is to recruit 6,500 new teachers, and while master's degrees in education and educational leadership are a prominent part of the online education landscape, one wonders what role an increased number of online PGCEs offered by some UK HEIs might play in this area.
Similarly, given the focus on mental health in schools and the pledges around more professionals in schools to support these needs, surely there is a role for online education in developing people with the capabilities needed to take up or grow into these ever important roles.
Now is the time…
What’s clear is that if we want to develop people to fulfil the professional needs we have as a United Kingdom and fill roles, we need to adopt a more accessible education approach. One of the strengths of online education is its ability to fit around people's lives and commitments. It does not require relocation to a different part of the country or the time commitment of travel to be at a particular place at a set time.
It’s not the sole answer, but it should be a key part of an education mix that supports those who want to or need to earn while they learn, upskill, reskill, and develop themselves to fulfil important professional roles. Although it may have had its time in the sun in policy discussion terms in decades past, the opportunity it offers to a UK government agenda is arguably more able to be met now than it ever was then.
