Speaker A
Now, I am going to take you into the future.
Ross Renton explores future university education focusing on accessibility, flexibility, technology, creativity, and social change.
Key Takeaways
- Higher education must evolve to be more accessible, flexible, and personalized to meet future student needs.
- Technology should enhance, not replace, the human elements of teaching and learning.
- Universities need to prepare students for a future where creativity and social impact are critical skills.
- The funding model shift impacts perceptions of education as a consumer product, influencing expectations and accountability.
- Social and political factors heavily influence the direction and perception of higher education.
Summary
- Ross Renton reflects on his university experience 20 years ago and contrasts it with the present challenges universities face.
- Universities are under scrutiny regarding teaching quality, student demographics, fees, and degree standards.
- The shift from government-funded to student-funded education raises questions about consumerism and value for money.
- Future students will demand greater accessibility beyond the current 50% participation target, possibly through non-traditional methods.
- Education will become more student-centered, with personalized development plans tailored to individual skills and knowledge gaps.
- Flexibility will be key, allowing students to balance study with work and caregiving by choosing modules and pacing their education.
- Technology will enable but not replace personal contact, enhancing learning through tools like virtual reality instead of traditional facilities.
- Creativity and innovation will be emphasized to develop skills that machines cannot replicate, such as creativity, innovation, and empathy.
- Social change will be integral to education, reflecting the evolving role of students as agents of societal transformation.
- Future studies methodology is used to forecast these trends, grounding predictions in history and current realities rather than speculation.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
But before I do that, I want to take you to the present and even before that, to the past.
Speaker A
So 20 years ago, I arrived at university, my very first day, and attended my first lecture.
Speaker A
I was the first generation of my family to go to university.
Speaker A
And I decided to sit right at the front, eager and willing to learn, I even had the pencil case, everything out.
Speaker A
And in came this dusty professor, exactly how you'd imagine a professor to look, really exciting.
Speaker A
The first thing he said to us, and we were in bated breath, this is an amazing experience, we're eager scientists, the very first thing he says to us, look to your left, look to your right, one of you will pass this course.
Speaker A
Crushing, absolutely crushing.
Speaker A
Now, why am I telling you that? Well, first of all, things have changed, thankfully.
Speaker A
And universities have progressed immensely in the past 20 years, you can hardly believe it's 20 years ago, can you?
Speaker A
But universities these days are under attack, so in the present, we're finding universities are getting under the spotlight.
Speaker A
So you can see on the screen, Lord Adonis, saying that we're not teaching enough.
Speaker A
We have some newspapers, saying that we're teaching the wrong people, international students in this case.
Speaker A
And over at the side, a letter from a chap called Heaton Harris, an MP, that we're teaching the wrong thing, he was questioning or asking who is teaching European studies after the Brexit.
Speaker A
Or the Brexit vote more like, and it continues, it doesn't stop there, we have questions about how many firsts we're handing out and what quality are the degrees.
Speaker A
We have questions about who we're letting in, are we letting anyone into universities?
Speaker A
And then there's questions about the fees, this newspaper here, questioning is it a big Ponzi scheme?
Speaker A
Is it all Bitcoin? Worrying, particularly for someone as a Pro-Vice Chancellor in a university.
Speaker A
So why are these questions being raised? Well, there's a number of factors.
Speaker A
There's the politics of it, students across the country did have an impact on the last general election, there's no doubt about it.
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If you live in Kent, you'll know that acutely, it changed the the direction of the election in many ways.
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But there's more fundamental reasons to that as well, over the time, we've seen the movement between the universities being funded by government directly.
Speaker A
And towards the student, so students themselves now pay 9,250 pounds per year for their education, that doesn't include living costs, etc.
Speaker A
So it's moved away from the government directly funding universities to students, and with that, a question about consumerism.
Speaker A
So is the relationship between universities and students a consumer relationship?
Speaker A
And if that's the case, then value for money is really important for them, now I'd question that, because it's a bit like joining a gym, you don't just get fit by joining the gym, you don't just get um the wonderful abs or the big muscles by having that little card, and it's the same with university, you have to earn it.
Speaker A
But it does have an impact on how we think about the future of higher education and the future of universities.
Speaker A
So, one of the things I've done in the past in my own research is use something called future studies.
Speaker A
Now future studies are really interesting um facet of research, it uses history and it uses the present to try and decide or at least theorize about what the future might look like.
Speaker A
It's more like financial forecasting than crystal ball gazing, although for some crystal ball gazing would be more fun.
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So I decided to use that on what it would be like for a student in the future, what kind of things would they look for out of their universities?
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So the first thing is accessibility.
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Now what do I mean by that? Well, 1997, when I went to university, Tony Blair stood up and said education, education, education, we all remember the speech.
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Not long after that, he said a target 50% of young people going into higher education.
Speaker A
It took nearly 20 years to reach that target.
Speaker A
And I think students in the future will think that's not good enough, we need people who have got a higher education, it might not be done in the traditional way, it might not be about going to a campus or university in the way you know at the moment, but 50% will not be good enough.
Speaker A
Student-centred, you think that would be obvious, wouldn't you?
Speaker A
But I think in the future, looking at all the evidence, the people's education will be devised on their personal needs, each student will have a personal development plan, will look at the gaps in skills and knowledge that they have and work with them to develop them through their time in their higher education.
Speaker A
That's very different from what at the moment can be a very structured program and be quite a challenge for many universities to reach.
Speaker A
Flexible.
Speaker A
So at the moment, there's very little flexibility in a traditional undergraduate degree.
Speaker A
In fact, there's an agreement across Europe, a thing called Bologna, which says that most degrees should be four years, England never followed that as you might expect, three years here, Scotland did, um but flexibility is going to be increasingly important.
Speaker A
For many universities, their students are studying full-time and working full-time, for many universities, their students have got caring responsibilities.
Speaker A
They're looking after children, they're looking after elderly relatives, and in doing that, the current system isn't working for them, so why can't students pick and choose modules, dip in and dip out of their higher education as they progress, that has to be the future for many students.
Speaker A
Technology-enabled.
Speaker A
So, one of the things I'm not going to say to you is the future there won't be anyone standing and giving a lecture, there won't be people involved.
Speaker A
We've tried that, so not that long ago we used a system called Second Life, some universities built whole institutions online.
Speaker A
They looked exactly the same as their university that was in the building, I'm not sure why they did that.
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And it was full of people, just not students, it was full of people who developed these wonderful institutions.
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It didn't work, there's also thing called MOOCs, a large online courses where people could access on an open basis.
Speaker A
But again, aren't quite working, what I'm proposing and what I believe is higher education will be technology-enabled, technology be used and embraced in different ways, it'll enhance that experience, but it won't replace that personal contact.
Speaker A
And I think that'll be really important, so for example, if you're building a medical school in the future, you wouldn't build a morgue, you'd build a virtual reality room where you're able to do some of the work that you can do at the moment in a morgue.
Speaker A
And likewise, in some of the animal testing you'd expect, and I think that has to be the future, and we're getting there, we're not far off from able to do these things already.
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Creative and innovative.
Speaker A
Another facet that I believe will be really important is making sure that students are able to do things that machines can't.
Speaker A
So automation is incredibly exciting, it might mean one day that you and I are working a three-day week, which is really appealing.
Speaker A
But what it won't mean is it replaces some of the things that we have as assets, so Jack Ma, who founded Alibaba, said this wonderfully, which is that machines are all very good, but they can't be creative, they can't innovate, and they can't love.
Speaker A
And I think these things are going to be really important when it comes to higher education in the future, we want people, they're not going to a Confucius sense of higher education, a Confucius sense of education, but really challenging ideas and bringing forward different ways to think.
Speaker A
And that brings me on to social change.
Speaker A
Seems a bit strange, isn't it, when talking about education, but it makes sense the longer you think about it.
Speaker A
Social change will be really important, already we see students, people who are in schools at the moment, making consumer choices about the environmental credentials of a company.
Speaker A
But there's some challenges that we need to meet, if anyone's been to a school recently and spoke to teachers, you'll know that mental health is a major problem, and that's the case in universities as well.
Speaker A
I think no matter what course you end up doing and what industry you go into, mental health will be incredibly important, and higher education, universities have to meet that need, so students will be looking for something that imparts social change.
Speaker A
Lifelong.
Speaker A
At the moment, higher education, with some exceptions, the Open University being one, really is quite geared up to the 18-year-old, in the future I think it has to be as relevant to the 80-year-old as it is to the 18-year-old now.
Speaker A
And there's some good reason for that, those who are being taught in primary schools at the moment will live to 100, which means, and we shouldn't tell them this yet, they'll probably be working till they're 80.
Speaker A
That means there'll be a lot of change to that time, so the practicalities of that will be that they have to learn new things, they have to have the skills to understand as the technology changes, but as society changes as well.
Speaker A
So higher education, universities, won't just stop at the time when you've done that three-year degree, will be for the entire life.
Speaker A
Some of this might seem a little bit like fantasy, some of it might seem far off.
Speaker A
But already we're doing some of this, so the University of Worcester, we've been piloting a scheme, really quite innovative.
Speaker A
We've given a group of our students, quite a large group, a a device, an iPad, a Samsung device in fact, which allows you um to access all the textbooks, as well-being apps on it.
Speaker A
And allows them to use it in the classroom.
Speaker A
Now that's all very well, but it's that marrying together then of the people that made the difference, so for example, the tutor can see how often people in the class are going back to the same part of the textbook.
Speaker A
So if they're getting stuck on a concept, for biologists like me, it's statistics, but you'd notice it, your next seminar would be changed.
Speaker A
You would change it towards the area the students are stuck at.
Speaker A
We're seeing the benefit of this already, so those students with these devices, with the textbooks pre-loaded and the data analytics behind it, we're seeing that those students their attainment's increasing, so they're staying at course.
Speaker A
And they're getting better grades.
Speaker A
But also, we're finding they're interacting better, the social element's coming in, and that's got to be a big part of their skills when they go off into the workplace.
Speaker A
If I was to ask our students now what the future looks like, I'd get a whole range of answers.
Speaker A
But one thing I can guarantee is no matter the technology, no matter the wonderful things we're able to do with virtual reality and augmented reality.
Speaker A
The thing that will make the difference in higher education in the future will be people.
Speaker A
And the thing that will really make the difference for our students is having high quality teaching.
Speaker A
That won't change.
Speaker A
Thank you.
Topics:future of educationhigher educationuniversity accessibilitystudent-centered learningflexible educationtechnology in educationcreativity in learningsocial changeeducation fundingRoss Renton
