Lifelong learning raises doubts about business models and learning itself

At first glance, there is little to dislike about a universal lifetime entitlement to the equivalent of four years of post-18 education, as England’s Lifelong Learning Bill promises to provide. Of course, a free entitlement to lifelong learning would be even better than a loan (which is in effect an extra tax). But in the absence of a political commitment to finding a better way to pay for higher education, we do at least appear to be seeing the emergence of a system that acknowledges the need for employees, mature learners and those with family or personal commitments to be able to take short courses at levels 4 to 6 and to accumulate credits flexibly.

Much of the discussion of the bill during its recent readings in the House of Commons related to tuition fees and likely cost per credit. However, there are two important issues that have been missing from the discussion around the lifelong learning entitlement (LLE) so far that could compromise the quality of the student experience. Ultimately, the sum of the LLE’s parts may not equate to the holistic learning experience anticipated.

First, we must consider the “learning” element of “flexible learning”. The approach advocated would, in effect, provide a free-for-all, with students accumulating credits here, there and everywhere, in any order and from any accredited institution. However, the purpose of the LLE is to boost “skills”, and while some aspects of skills can be taught independently and in a “stackable” way, the development of knowledge and conceptual understanding benefits from sequenced, managed progression over time, particularly at higher levels of learning.

New learning should build on prior learning in a considered way. Clearly, prerequisites for undertaking particular courses could be established, but there would remain a risk that without proper sequencing, learning and assessments will be wastefully repeated, leading to duplication and stagnation.

The second issue is cost. A key feature of the LLE is to set the price of “modules” to be consistent with that of “full-time typical courses”, so a ballpark figure could be that 10 credits is likely to cost in the region of £750-£800. Extrapolating from the Russell Group’s previous indication that £1,750 is lost each year on educating home students, the loss per 10-credit unit would be at least £150.

The real loss, however, would probably be much more as the administration and organisational aspects of running multiple short courses are likely to be considerably greater than those of running standard degree courses. Extra costs would be introduced by the need to undertake certain administrative tasks multiple times, rather than just once. Examples include processing loan entitlements, importing and exporting academic credits and transcripts, and mapping assessment systems and methods – not to mention the additional support services linked to the fragmentation of careers, counselling and occupational health.

There is also the added financial insecurity for the provider that funding is only committed by the student to a single module. Likewise, the staffing flexibility required to facilitate flexible learning would mean that potentially less could be invested in a stand-alone 10-credit module than on a module that is part of a planned sequence of learning over a specific period of time.

Potentially, popular “modules”, run at scale, might be able to break even – but the less popular modules would be unable to run. Therefore, student choice around how they stack their credits would likely be hampered by short-notice changes to the menu on offer due to fluctuations in supply and demand. All of these are reasons why a student pursuing lifelong learning modules might get less for their money than a student on a standard degree course.

No doubt some providers will find a way through all these problems and make the system work. But however commendable the aspiration of the Lifelong Learning Bill may be, the implications for learning and business models of running such short courses must be considered from the outset. Ensuring an excellent learning experience, built on clear principles of quality, progression and coherence, must be at the heart of our aspirations.

David Spendlove is associate dean of the faculty of humanities at the University of Manchester.