Retreat or Resolution? Tackling the Crisis of Mass Higher Education
- Peter Scott, UCL Institute of Education
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This webinar is based on the book, Retreat or Resolution? Tackling the Crisis of Mass Higher Education, published by Bristol University Press at the end of October.
The core argument is that, despite the fourfold expansion of places in universities since the 1970s, mass higher education remains an unsettling phenomenon. For some it has gone too far – which explains the rising political rhetoric about low-value courses, under-performing institutions and dumbing-down. For others it has not gone far enough – simply creating mass access for the middle classes while effectively still excluding the ‘left behind’ (to adopt another fashionable political trope). I will argue that the only chive is a radical leap forward, while also arguing that a mass system inevitably mimics the society (and its flaws) in which that system is embedded.
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Peter Scott is Professor of Higher Education Studies at the UCL Institute of Education and Commissioner for Fair Access in Scotland. Previously he was Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University and before that Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Education at the University of Leeds. While a member of the board of the (former) Higher Education Funding Council for England, he chaired HEFCE’s strategic committees first on widening participation and later learning, teaching and quality assurance.
