I recently spoke at the Online Learning Summit at the University of Leeds, sharing my analysis of the evolving online education landscape in UK higher education. Whilst that inevitably touched on a range of trends and developments, a key message was one of steady growth in the number of online degrees on offer at UK higher education institutions (HEIs) and more institutions becoming serious about online distance education.

Online education as a relatively new mode of teaching & learning in the grand timeline of education is often, as if by default, accompanied by a narrative of it being the growing modality of the future. Whilst there’s a lot in that - higher education institutions (HEIs) need to build foundations on something firmer than hyperbolic predictions as they look to successfully offer online distance education.

Towards the end of 2022 I wrote a post about the turbulence being experienced by online education companies that partner with universities. This was on the back of a raft of negative company announcements about their performance and financial health.

There’s been a number of changes since then and there’s still plenty of dark clouds looming. What we’re seeing is a more prolonged shake-out of some of these companies.

So it’s an interesting juncture to reflect on what’s unfolded over the most recent period of turbulence. It’s also worth considering what turbulence-driven changes might mean for the way online education companies operate in the future and what we might be left with.

UK higher education is currently growing in lots of different ways. Record numbers are applying and going to universities, and it’s been predicted that by 2030 there will be a million people applying for places. This is largely due to an increasing 18-year-old population and an ever growing number of internationally mobile students.

It’s been a pretty significant period in the world of online education with a whole raft of negative headlines emanating from a number of notable online education companies that partner with universities.

We live in a world where there are different modes of teaching and study that educational providers can offer. It goes without saying that one of the most dominant for many of them is centred around sequences of face-to-face classes or sessions. 

If I was to sum up this year I’d describe it as one of transition, a year in which the scramble of the pivot to emergency remote teaching was left well behind, but not one in which we’ve seen universities radically transform their educational model. Online education whilst still viewed as suboptimal for some, is now being valued and prioritised by more decision makers in higher education.

If you were involved in the world of online education before the pandemic, then the past 18+ months have been...well….interesting to say the least. The debate and dialogue around the efficacy of online education or the pandemic version often referred to as emergency remote teaching has been at times a little fractious. Much has been lost in the fog of significant and challenging events and the many words that have been generated in light of them.

As we enter into a somewhat different phase of this period, universities might reflect on how online or distance education is a more robust and resilient mode of teaching and study than the residential model. They might also reflect on what so many of us working in online education before the pandemic knew well - that online education can result in as good outcomes as any other mode of teaching and study. It’s not the mode that makes the difference. 

MOOCs are meeting a demand that obviously isn’t being met elsewhere and universities as major education providers would be wise to reflect deeply on that. In reality, there are still only a handful of UK universities strategically engaging in partnerships with MOOC platforms and this has been the case since the start.