Birkbeck President calls part-time study ‘the shape of the future’
The President of Birkbeck, Baroness Bakewell, has called on the Government to give part-time study a ‘much stronger role’ in its thinking about higher education.
The President of Birkbeck, Baroness Bakewell, has called on the Government to give part-time study a ‘much stronger role’ in its thinking about higher education.
Baroness Bakewell said she believed part-time study and lifelong learning was ‘the shape of the future’ and would play an important role in the lives of people wanting to retrain in new skills in the future.
The Baroness’s remarks were made during two debates at the House of Lords this week, as peers consider the detail of the Government’s Higher Education and Research Bill. The Bill seeks to regulate aspects of the higher education sector and make it easier to establish new universities.
During Monday’s debate Baroness Bakewell said: “We need to include in the essence of the Bill the fact that part-time university study is a valid, important and growing sector.
She added that part-time study benefits “not simply 18 to 24 year-old students; people are graduating from Birkbeck in their 50s,60s and 70s with full-scale degrees. They are retraining, they come from every kind of background and they really appreciate the training they get. “
In yesterday’s debate, Baroness Bakewell stressed the importance of part-time study to mature learners or those who may have missed out on studying earlier in their lives. Her comments were supported by Birkbeck Fellow and former Master of Birkbeck, Baroness Tessa Blackstone.
She said: “Mature students who study part-time…give up a huge amount of their leisure time; they sacrifice all that to work and study at the same time.
“We have to get away from the notion that university and higher education is primarily about full-time study…things are changing and we are going to see far more part-time students in the coming years.” She said this was in part because “changes in the wider environment will require them to return to part-time higher education to improve their knowledge and update their skills. Only if they do that will they be able to truly contribute to the knowledge economy.”
Birkbeck has welcomed the Higher Education and Research Bill in principle but has voiced concerns over the lack of specific support for mature and part-time learners, the role of the proposed Office for Students, and the implementation of the new Teaching Excellence Framework. An exceptionally large number of amendments to the Bill – more than 500 – have been proposed by members of the House of Lords, who will debate the Bill in detail over the next few weeks.
Find out more
- The Higher Education and Research Bill
- Hansard record of the January 11 debate
- Birkbeck President, Baroness Joan Bakewell