stuff

Is there demand for fee loan backed short courses?

Leave a comment
student on a laptop
Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

Over on Wonk corner, David Kernohan discusses the legacy of Keir Starmer on higher education.

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Keir Starmer was a prime minister who had a substantial influence on higher education.

Though overing the Starmer legacy, also in the article David says

…there are still important questions about demand for fee loan backed short courses. I’m not convinced the LLE was a good idea…

I have been looking at the infrastructure (and the importance of interoperability) in relation other student mobility in Europe, one reason for this is the applicability of the European Higher Education Interoperability Framework to the concept of the LLE in England.

When discussing LLE with colleagues in Jisc and in the wider higher education sector, that question about demand does come up quite often. Are there people out there demanding short courses and are they looking for fee loan to cover those costs? We are not seeing people wanting to do such courses, so does that mean there is no demand?

I always think that this analysis is a bit chicken and egg, and that I mean by that, there appears to be no demand for fee loan backed short courses, so the sector does not offer fee loan backed short courses. However, could it be that because sector does not offer fee loan backed short courses, there is no demand as a result,

Going back to why we are going to have LLE, the government say this.

As set out in the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, the government is committed to ensuring the country develops the skills needed to:

  • drive sustained economic growth
  • break down barriers to opportunity
  • improve the living standards of hardworking people

The LLE will deliver transformational change to the current student finance system by 

  • broadening access to high-quality, flexible education and training
  • supporting greater learner mobility between institutions

This will enable individuals to learn, upskill and retrain across their working lives. It will create opportunities for both young people and adults to develop the skills needed to succeed in life, contributing to growth across the entire country.

The implication is that there is an untapped demand for high-quality, flexible education and training. It is currently not been provided as there is no demand for it. However that demand is based on charging actual upfront fees for the education and training. Remove upfront fees with fees backed by loans, then there will be renewed demand. 

If this is the case then, how does the system ensure that once we have the demand, that there is a supply. Is the system agile enough to respond to changes in demand. The government believes that it is, the question is does the sector believe that too?

weeknotes

Putting pen to paper – Weeknote #383 – 3rd July 2026

Leave a comment
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Busy week with lots of meetings.

I have done very little travel over the last few months, my last trip was back in April when I was up in Leeds for the AUDE conference. My original plan was to head to TNC in Helsinki in June last month, but didn’t make the cut, as too many people from Jisc wanted to go. Though I enjoyed TNC last year, my main reason for attending, wasn’t in fact attending TNC, I was part of two side meetings on the Monday before TNC. Next year TNC 27 is in Belgium, this should be easier to get to for the side meetings, as I could literally drive there, well and hop on a ferry to get across the channel.

I had considered going to the EUNIS conference in Romania, I was there last year when it was held in Belfast. Last year I was speaking, if I had gone this year it would have been as a delegate. It would have been useful to go, buy I have been asked to cut back on my travel and conference attendance. I have missed a lot of conferences this year, compared to last year, but at most of these there were others from Jisc in attendance.

Typewriter
Image by Patrik Houštecký from Pixabay

I did though publish a few things on the blog.

I didn’t write about snow, but I did write about heatwaves and response from schools and colleges.

Following the Met Office weather warning and forecasted high temperatures, we are making some temporary changes to teaching arrangements for the remainder of this week to help ensure the comfort, wellbeing, and safety of learners and staff. Campuses will be closed to curriculum teaching from Wednesday to Friday inclusive. 

In another blog post I discussed the importance of discovery in enabling student mobility and some of the issues that would be faced in the UK.

Margo wants to study towards a degree but wants to combine different modules from different courses across Europe. She knows the subjects she is interested in; she also knows which countries where she would like to study. However, she doesn’t know which universities across Europe offer which modules. Discovery would allow Freya to access the course and module catalogues from across a range of universities, compare different offerings and would be able to refine her search based on specific criteria. She would also be sure that the information she finds is up to date.

This was the first in a series of articles where I will be looking at student mobility in the UK. What I mean by student mobility is how a student can choose when and where to study, at a time and place that is suitable for them. It’s about enabling students to take parts of courses from different institutions. This (in theory) is possible now, but was challenging for students from both a financial perspective and administratively.

I wrote about two stories on collaboration.

The first of these was the launch of Universities West. It is a new collaboration between Bath Spa University, the University of Bath, the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England.

Up in Scotland, the staff at Napier and Queen Margaret universities have been told of plans to create a “multi-university” with Scotland’s Rural College.

Zoom
Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

I was involved in various consultancy meetings this week. My main role in these are about quality assurance.

Next week I am presenting at the Westminster Higher Education Forum policy conference on the next steps for university estates in the UK.

news

More signs of collaboration and sharing

Leave a comment

In the news this week, two stories on collaboration and shared services.

The first of these was the launch of Universities West. It is a new collaboration between Bath Spa University, the University of Bath, the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England – has formally launched. The grouping is intended to strengthen collaboration, support economic growth and improve opportunities for learners.

These sorts of collaboration can lead to more collaboration. Though the focus of Universities West is on supporting the (WECA) Skills Strategy, there are implications and possibilities for future collaboration, shared services, and potentially shared infrastructure to support student mobility to deliver on the skills strategy.

Up in Scotland, the staff at Napier and Queen Margaret universities have been told of plans to create a “multi-university” with Scotland’s Rural College

In Scotland, a staff briefing was “revealed” that detailed plans to share services between Edinburgh Napier University, Queen Margaret University, and Scotland’s Rural College.

Reaction from staff was that they fear this as a “merger by stealth”. Senior management have “categorically told the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) union that  they are not planning a merger,” while an unnamed member of staff was reported saying that plans would “maintain each institution’s independence and autonomy, but provide some shared services.”

My reflections on this, having been involved in the collaboration agenda over the last few years, one concern not often expressed, is the impact of shared services on jobs. Collaboration and shared services are often seen as potential solutions to another problem, such as financial sustainability. This reaction though is interesting in that the focus is on how shared services would not just result in loss of autonomy, but the end game was merger. 

Over on WonkHE, Vicki Stott the incoming senior strategic advisor to the alliance outlines the vision for the collaboration.

From the outset, the principals have been clear that this must be a genuine alliance of equals: three institutions, each with its own history, mission and place, choosing to test how far they can go together while remaining themselves.

She also talks about the ambitions of the alliance.

On the ambitious side, the alliance will deliberately explore shared services, aligned procurement, collaborative curriculum development (within the guardrails of CMA guidance, naturally), data-sharing and better student transitions across institutional boundaries. 

As well as emphasising that this is not a merger.

It is, very explicitly, not a merger. It is an attempt to find out whether autonomy, identity and radical collaboration can coexist in practice rather than just in strategy documents.

Of course, we have seen with the London and South East University merger between Greenwich and Kent, that merger doesn’t always mean losing identity. We have seen that in the large number of FE college groups that exist, where the local campus has retained their individual identities despite being part of a larger group structure.

What both these news stories tell us, is that collaboration isn’t always straightforward, and isn’t always seen as a good news story by staff in those institutions. 

Understanding the local culture and background is important, when we discuss collaboration with members, but also that there are potentially some negative reactions to news of collaboration or implementation of shared services.

stuff

Discovery and student mobility

Leave a comment
typing
Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

I have been looking at student mobility in the UK. What I mean by student mobility is how a student can choose when and where to study, at a time and place that is suitable for them. It’s about enabling students to take parts of courses from different institutions. This (in theory) is possible now, but was challenging for students from both a financial perspective and administratively.

One of the use cases of the European Higher Education Interoperability Framework is about discovery.

Enhancing the visibility and comparability of diverse learning and mobility opportunities across HEls, emphasising the importance of machine-readable metadata for easy comparison and discovery.

The discovery use case marks the beginning of the learner journey. This use case focuses on the concept of a course catalogue. 

coffee
Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

Student story

Margo wants to study towards a degree but wants to combine different modules from different courses across Europe. She knows the subjects she is interested in; she also knows which countries where she would like to study. However, she doesn’t know which universities across Europe offer which modules. Discovery would allow Freya to access the course and module catalogues from across a range of universities, compare different offerings and would be able to refine her search based on specific criteria. She would also be sure that the information she finds is up to date.

When you start looking into discovery you start to realise that there are quite a few different doors into discovering what higher education is on offer.

Firstly every higher education institution offers a catalogue of courses, usually on their website, often they will also offer a print prospectus.

If you are looking at a three year undergraduate degree and you have just finished your A Levels then the UCAS website can tell what courses are out there and other can use it as well.

The government has a website, DiscoverUni, which uses HESA data to provide information on what higher education courses are been delivered.

The Student Loans Company also has a list of courses, not all courses, but all those that can be funded by a student loan.

However the data requirements for all these services are different. So, each institution has to provide the data to all the services using a different structure and format. This must add to the administrative burden for institutions. Also, at the moment this isn’t dynamic data, so regular updates need to be provided.

Of course from a student perspective, discovering and choosing a course is one thing, the next stage is application. Only one of these services, UCAS, providers an application route. With the other discovery services, the student will need to work out how to apply, whether that be through UCAS, or going direct to the providers’ website. Each higher education institution has a different process of application, virtually all will ask you to create an account on their application portal, and you will need to do this each time for different institutions.

LLE will add a huge level of complexity to the student experience in discovering courses as well as increasing the number of applications. At one stage a prospective student  may be looking on the provider’s website, then they will need to check the SLC website, then they will need to apply, which may be on the provider’s website or potentially through UCAS. They will then need to do this each time they want to complete a module of study.

In many ways, discovery is one of the more simple use cases, the data requirements are quite minimal. However, the reality is that there are multiple stakeholders with different needs and requirements, so getting consensus and agreement could be challenging.

stuff

Too hot to handle

Leave a comment
student studying in the sun
Image by Susanne from Pixabay

Long term readers of the blog will know that I use to discuss snow days, and how universities and colleges would close due to snow and that the possible options of moving learning online were often ignored as snow was such a freak occurrence. Of course Covid changed all that kind of thinking.

Last week we had another heatwave, not long after a similar heatwave the previous month.

With red warnings from the Met Office, lots of schools and quite a few colleges closed because of the heat. 

Following the Met Office weather warning and forecasted high temperatures, we are making some temporary changes to teaching arrangements for the remainder of this week to help ensure the comfort, wellbeing, and safety of learners and staff. Campuses will be closed to curriculum teaching from Wednesday to Friday inclusive. 

Reminded me of all the snow days. However, I was a little surprised to see that some schools and colleges were moving learning online. If the college buildings are too hot, then I can’t see how a learners’ home would be any cooler.

When it snows, your home is probably okay for studying, but when there is a heatwave, then your home might be rather uncomfortable. I know my own home, it was not conducive to working, so much so, I headed into the air conditioned comforts of the office.

Didn’t notice many closure notices from the higher education sector, but it is close to the end of term for most universities.

person reading a book outside
Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Going forward, we will see more hot weather, the question is, not so much should we move learning online, but how can we improve our campuses to be more conducive for studying in hot weather. We may also want to think about start times, what with the early mornings being cooler as well. Term dates might also need rethinking.

Air conditioning may be seen as the obvious option to keep buildings cool, but you can’t aways retrofit on existing buildings, and it is expensive to run. In a financially constrained environment, the cost of running air conditioning may be prohibitive and offsetting that cost with solar panels may not be possible with an upfront capital investment. The environmental impact of air conditioning can not be ignored either. In France air conditioning, after recording its hottest day is creating a political divide. As the BBC reports, France use to be  quite hostile to air conditioning, now with record temperatures the political responses are changing.

Last week was too hot to handle, this week, it is going to be a lot cooler. Of course it is highly unlikely we will not see future heatwaves, maybe now is the time to think about responses, and mitigation so to ensure that high temperatures don’t negatively impact on the student experience.

weeknotes

Way too hot – Weeknote #382 – 26th June 2026

Leave a comment
heatwave
Image by daschorsch from Pixabay. 

I was mainly on leave this week, we also had another heatwave. I made it to the office on those hot days I was working, and the office was a nice cool respite from the heat of the day.

Lots of schools and quite a few colleges closed because of the heat. Reminded me of all the snow days. However, I was a little surprised to see that some schools and colleges were moving learning online. If the college buildings are too hot, then I can’t see how a learners’ home would be any cooler.

Didn’t notice much from the higher education sector, but it is close to the end of term for most universities.

weeknotes

Stuck in the mud – Weeknote #381 – 19th June 2026

Leave a comment

A busy week with lots of meetings, research, and responding to emails and questions.

I have been reflecting on the challenges that the higher education sector are facing and how difficult it appears to be for the sector to respond to these challenges. 

Looking back over my blog posts, back in August 2024, I wrote about how hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I wrote then 

There are lots of examples of how organisations and companies did not respond to changes and trends. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as you can ask, why didn’t they change, they could see the challenge, they could have changed, they could have adapted. The problem often is that though internally the organisation may know it needs to change, the current situation means they are unable to change.

Higher Education knows that they are facing challenges, and that they need to change. They know this. However a deeper question is not the one that Higher Education needs to be told they need to change, they know that, but they are actually unable to change and so the question is how do we change a sector, that knows it needs to change, but actually can’t make that change.

Two year after writing that post on the need for change, I am not seeing significant change or transformational change. There have been at most two mergers, but not a huge amount of collaboration either.

Where we have seen significant change has been in job losses across the sector. This week I wrote a post about the implications of the current round of redundancies at the University of Dundee.

It is been reported that the University of Dundee is looking to cut an additional 190 jobs. Despite already cutting about 675 jobs through voluntary redundancies, the university said it still needed to make annual savings of about £20m.

They are not alone in needing to make savings and job cuts.

One of the unanswered questions is how will all this impact on the student experience.

news

More jobs to be lost at Dundee

Leave a comment
Writing in a notebook
Image by Pexels from Pixabay

It is been reported that the University of Dundee is looking to cut an additional 190 jobs. Despite already cutting about 675 jobs through voluntary redundancies, the university said it still needed to make annual savings of about £20m – mostly from staff costs. This is after the Scottish government provided £40m in emergency funding last year to help stabilise the university, with ministers expecting at the time that this would limit job losses to about 300. Political pressure is mounting for a complete reimagining of the university and college sector.

Dundee is not the only university in Scotland in dealing with financial challenges, you could argue Dundee’s problems were exacerbated by poor management. GuildHE did publish some lessons learned here.

So, what are the implications of this for higher education in Scotland?

It seems highly unlikely that another university in Scotland would get the same kind of bailout that Dundee had. It will depend on which (if any) university is failing and where it is. The Scottish government could not afford a scale of bailout that Dundee across the whole of the sector.

Another question is can the sector afford the level of redundancy that we are seeing across the sector. Dundee has reduced its staffing by around 25% and 80% of that was through voluntary redundancy. Across the sector as a whole we are seeing more jobs been cut. 

Despite the need for efficiencies, these cuts must be having an impact on the student experience. In the longer term, we may see a restructuring of the Scottish higher education sector. The SFC has been advocating for more collaboration across both HE and FE in Scotland.

apple, iphone, podcasting, weeknotes

Helsinki isn’t all that bad – Weeknote #380 – 12th June 2026

Leave a comment

Linus Torvalds, the Finnish software engineer and creator of Linux, famously captured the essence of his hometown with this quote:

“Helsinki isn’t all that bad. It’s a very nice city, and it’s cold really only in wintertime.”

I was in Helsinki in February 2025 when a workshop was held to see what potential there was for NRENs to collaborate and work together to deliver on the potential of student mobility.

I was not in Helsinki this week for TNC 2026. For a variety of reasons not attending TNC this year, which is taking place in Helsinki in Finland. One of the side meetings is the inaugural meeting of the new GÉANT Education Digital Infrastructure and Interoperability Coordination Group which is essentially an evolution of the NRENS4Education group. I was, though, able to join remotely. I had also recorded a video in case the remote connection failed. 

I had bought some accessories for my iPhone for shooting the video, a  Mini Wireless Lavalier Microphone, a 128 LED Rechargeable Portable Selfie Light  and a YZNT tripod mount. I liked the fact the microphone came with some windproof heads for using the mics outside. I have been thinking about rebooting the elearning stuff podcast.

One gadget I had back around 2010 was the Edirol R-09HR 24bit 96kHz Wave/MP3 Recorder which was an audio recorder, which was great for recording audio files direct to an SD card. You could use it to record mp3 and WAV files. This is now a retired product, I am not sure what products are out there that would fulfil the use cases that the Edirol did. Not sure if the iPhone is an adequate replacement, but it’s being a while since I looked at audio stuff.

Watched the WWDC keynote from Apple about their work on Apple Intelligence. I realise that in the world of AI, I am way behind in this space and this was one thing I was doing as part of my personal development to update my understanding.

Spent much of the rest of the week supporting staff.

Friday I made my way to the Bristol office. Nice to have a change in pace, location and routine.

stuff

Stacking your qualifications

Leave a comment
stacked papers
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

I have been looking at student mobility in the UK. What I mean by student mobility is how a student can choose when and where to study, at a time and place that is suitable for them. It’s about enabling students to take parts of courses from different institutions. This (in theory) is possible now, but was challenging for students from both a financial perspective and administratively.

One challenge this is often thrown out when discussing student mobility is about who awards the degree if a student is undertaking studies at a range of different institutions. The usual thinking is that the home institution would be responsible. However the aspirations of student mobility (whether that be within LLE or not) is that of lifelong learning. The concept of a home institution may not be practical or viable for a student who is studying over a longer time period.

This got me thinking about the necessity of having to stacking a student’s studies so a degree can be awarded. Is that absolutely essential?

This however isn’t something that students and institutions need to grapple with, employers and others would also need to be engaged in the process. So when a person makes an application for employment (or future study) the stack of qualifications they have, are recognised for what they are, without the need for some institution to combine them into a single qualification. 

If you have 360 credits, this is recognised as equivalent to a standard degree. Does the student need to have these credits validated so they can be awarded a degree? I am sure some individuals would want that, but is it a requirement, does it have to happen?

One of the challenges is who awards that degree? What if the home institution no longer exists? 

A question that I saw at a recent event was how long is a credit viable for, will it lose its validity over time, and does that matter, or if it does which subjects would need this.  What about validity of the credits earned. Is the 30 credit course I did ten years ago still able to be stacked into that degree.

Looking at some thoughts from the sector on this, the Open University does not consider study completed more than 16 years ago for credit transfer towards an Open University qualification.

It is common for other universities only to offer credit transfer for study completed in the last five years.

Is the validity of a qualification something we want to leave to individuals institutions? Who should be saying it is sixteen years, or five years, or something in-between.

I did my Economics degree back in the 1980s, and much of what I learnt then hasn’t changed much, to be honest it hadn’t changed much in the previous forty years, let alone the last forty years. Some units I did are probably out of date, thinking about that unit I did on the Economics of European Community for example. Whilst others, such as that module on Economic and Social History probably hasn’t aged. I suspect if I had done computer science, that the stuff I learnt back then was now out of date. However, the skills I gained by learning and studying (economics) have remained relevant to this day.

Does a credit from one institution now mean it is equivalent to a credit from another? Will that be accepted by all institutions. I can see the concept of equality between institutions not being accepted by all institutions.

If we are to really embrace student mobility and the opportunities that the LLE can bring to higher education, we do need to, as a sector, decide how and if we need to stack qualifications, and what is required if a student who has stacked their credentials and wants to be awarded a degree. 

news and views on e-learning, TEL and learning stuff in general…