https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/make-way-for-the-multiversity/173317.

article

Make way for the 'multiversity'

David Melville1
November 29, 2002

The future of post-16 learning lies in a hybrid mix of further and higher education.
Universities and further education colleges have much in common. Their agendas include
widening participation, employability and engaging with business. Many also share common
origins in their local authority technical-college heritage. But, it might be argued, that is
where the similarity ends.

The priorities of further education lie in basic skills, vocational training and workforce
development to level 3, sixth-form studies and adult education. Higher education's priorities
are in teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, research and knowledge transfer.

This simple delineation is helpful in showing that further and higher education institutions
operate along a generally common set of principles but are largely complementary in the
detail of what they do. But it is unhelpful in not describing the existing or the developing
complexity of these institutions.

More than 200,000 students study for higher education qualifications in further education
colleges - about 12 per cent of all higher education students. These numbers amount to more
than the whole of the university sector at the time of the Robbins report in the 1960s. Now,
almost all of the 200 or so general further education colleges have some higher education
provision. For specialist further education institutions in areas such as agriculture and art and
design, about 30 per cent of provision, on average, is higher education.

On the other side of the coin, the amount of further education in universities is also growing
in volume, although the picture is complex. While the "historic" provision of further
education in post-1992 universities is decreasing, a number of higher education institutions
have increased further education provision or acquired it through mergers with further
education colleges or with specialist higher education institutions with further education
provision.

Potentially, further and higher education together can achieve much more in ensuring
progression and in developing targeted vocational provision. If a university can take nursing
students aged 16 and get them to degree level within four years, why can it not do the same
for engineering students? The reason for its success in nursing is that the curriculum is
relatively narrow, the training and education very much vocational and work related and
motivation high. Perhaps this is the key to retaining many more of our young people in
vocational areas in the future.

1
Vice-Chancellor, University of Kent
In ten years, there will undoubtedly be many more merged and hybrid institutions. For many
learners, especially those returning to study after a period of work, whether they are at
college or university is immaterial. Their focus is increasingly on the content and quality of
their course rather than the name or the label of the organisation.

But I do not believe that mergers are the panacea for increasing numbers and widening
participation. Much more significant are strategic alliances and, in particular, the
"multiversity" concept being developed in a number of places around the UK.

The idea is straightforward: a cooperating alliance of further and higher education

institutions, and, where possible, schools, based on a simple set of principles. These
principles are parity of esteem, and institutions doing what they are individually best at doing,
while working in a particular geographical area with a focus on a particular task, in which
widening and increasing higher education participation are likely to be key.

The 2010 landscape for higher and further education will almost certainly be dominated by
such strategic and intimate alliances. All universities will need them.