New Stimulus paper on credit accumulation and transfer

Nov 18, 2013

The Leadership Foundation is pleased to be launching Professor Sir David Watson’s Stimulus paper at the University of Oxford’s SKOPE conference on Friday 22 November.  Professor Sir David Watson is the principal of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford.

The Stimulus paper Credit Risk?  Reviving credit accumulation and transfer in UK higher education, sets out to explain the potential role of credit accumulation and transfer (CATS) in higher education and the extent to which universities and higher education colleges in the UK are currently engaging with this. It is proposed that reviving CATS would help in the UK’s drive to improve flexibility in higher education courses and ensure that new types of students from diverse education backgrounds are able to access relevant offerings.

Professor Sir David Watson suggests that the UK has the potential to become a world leader in lifelong and flexible learning however as a sector there is often too narrow a focus on the needs of younger, full-time students and too many hierarchies and conventions within and between institutions of all types.

Professor Sir David suggests that to take the potential of CATS forward:

  • Institutional heads need to be less precious about the linking of their status with that of the prior experience of the student body.
  • Senior academic leaders need to ensure that cross-institutional academic frameworks are transparent and fairly assessed.
  • Course leaders and tutors need to think hard about learner autonomy and its implications.
  • Students need to play their parts as well.

Advance copies of the Stimulus paper will be available in Oxford on Friday 22, where  Professor  Sir David Watson will give a presentation  entitled Lifelong Learning and the challenge of credit.

Members of the Leadership Foundation will receive their copies shortly after that date and PDF copies of the report will be available to all online just before the Christmas 2013 break.

Note to editors

  1. The Leadership Foundation’s Stimulus paper series are to inform thinking choices and decisions at institutional and system levels in UK higher education. The themes covered fall into clusters including higher education leadership; business models for higher education; leading the student experience and leadership; and equality of opportunity in higher education.  We produce these papers with the hope of stimulating discussion and debate, as well as giving an insight into some of the new and emerging issues relevant to higher education today.  www.lfhe.ac.uk
  2. The SKOPE National Conference takes place across two days, and is a celebration event to mark the end of Phase 3 and the move into Phase 4 for the academics and researchers who have been involved in the centre’s activities.
  3. SKOPE is an ESRC funded research centre that is multi-disciplinary and aims to help better integration between economic and social perspectives on skill acquisition and usage.  More about  SKOPE