A Brief History of Credit in UK Higher Education: Laying Siege to the Ivory Tower

Description

Although credit is a well-established feature of the higher education sector in the USA, it is a relatively recent and radical phenomenon in the UK. Credit is a vehicle for widening access and student choice, for curricular flexibility and mobility of learning. Credit provides a transparent, enabling framework within which students can be supported and sustained through their learning journey. Yet much of the conservative 'university establishment' in the UK university sector has been hostile to the credit project, hence credit in the UK is both championed and condemned, celebrated and feared, embedded and rejected in different settings. This book provides an introductory overview of credit, chronological chapters which trace the narrative of the history of credit in the UK higher education (decade by decade) from the ground-breaking Robbins Report of 1963 to the present day and a commentary on the developments of the past half-century. Everyone involved, or with an interest, in Higher Education should read this book, including educators (curriculum developers, tutors, assessors) and administrators, institutional leaders and student advisors. Debates about the focus, funding and future of the UK university sector is at the forefront of political and educational discourse; this book could not be more timely. Furthermore, there are no comparable books in the market. This is the first history of credit in the UK HE sector. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Foreword Acknowledgements 1: Credit, by Way of Introduction The origins of credit Developments in credit: a conceptual framework A credit historiography Robertson (1996) Bridges (2010) Comparing and Contrasting These Credit Overviews 2: The Robbins Report and the Credit Pioneers 3: Educational Credit Transfer: A Feasibility Study 4: The Introduction of Credit Schemes in UK Higher Education Case Study 5: Choosing To Change? 6: Autodidacts In Anoraks: The Emergence of the Higher Education Credit Consortia The South East England Consortium for Credit Accumulation and Transfer (SEEC) The Northern Universities Consortium for Credit Accumulation and Transfer (NUCCAT) A Common Framework for Learning: The Inter-Consortium Credit Agreement (InCCA) The United Kingdom Credit Forum (UKCF) 7: Are We There Yet? Dearing, Burgess and the Credit ssues Development Group The National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, 1997 (Dearing Report) Measuring and Recording Student Achievement, the Burgess Scoping (2004) and Steering Group (2006) Reports The Credit Issues Development Group (CIDG): Higher Education Credit Framework for England (2008) 8: The Chimera of a National Credit Framework and Related Observations Bibliography Index