My first career was in further education when I made my way from part-time lecturer to FE college principal through the decade covering the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. During this time I worked and studied – earned and learned. Firstly I completed my FE teacher training certificate part-time at Nottingham Trent university then went on to gain a diploma in management studies at Sheffield Hallam university – all at the same time as working full-time as a teacher in FE and then climbing the greasy career pole of FE as an aspiring manager. There were rewards and compensations for the hours of toil at weekends. I became a college principal aged 34 – the youngest ever – and a record I believe I still hold!

FE has its roots in part-time study with learning at night school existing alongside work ‘in the real world’. It was important to me, particularly as a young graduate teacher with ‘academic’ degrees who chose to work in vocational education – the unfashionable end of the learning and skills spectrum – to have an appreciation my students experiences, many of whom were working full time and studying part time on professional and technical courses. Irrespective of my own efforts all those years ago, I pay tribute to all students who choose the earning and learning route as it requires considerable organisation, dedication and perspiration and we know that financial pressures on students in higher education today mean that over a third are combining part-time study with employment.

The culture, structure and funding of our education system has changed significantly over the last 40 years as well as the global economic and political situation in which we find ourselves today. Plenty of people in work still undertake CIPD and other work related training often completing their professional qualifications whilst earning. However the concept of significant numbers of young people at 16 or 18 choosing to study part-time at the same time as holding down a job is currently undergoing a revolution as we accommodate to the brave new world of ‘adult’ loans, university tuition fees, bursaries, absence of maintenance grants and the introduction of an apprenticeship levy.

The opportunity of a non-returnable means tested grant funded university education that in 1971 enabled me to become the first person in my family to go to university – and to experience four years of blissfully uninterrupted intellectual enquiry and personal development – is today be regarded as the height of self indulgence and remains possible for only a handful of students.

The majority of students starting university this autumn will need to earn and learn – and when finally they are earning full time, if they have chosen a full time degree course, they must repay the student debt they accrued whilst at university. Is it any wonder then that a part-time university degree course offered in a range of modes (face-to-face group teaching combined with online learning) combined with home living and holding down a job is an option being chosen by an increasing number of students.

The government in my view needs to do more therefore to promote and support this route to learning – and earning. I support the Open Universities’ campaign to encourage more students to pursue part-time degree courses and for this to be combined with work and other life choices. Government commitment to part time learning would help – flying the flag for part-time university degrees by embracing their value and promoting their importance with the same vigour as the pursuit of three million apprenticeships. An equivalent cultural change as has been instigated in apprenticeships needs to be spearheaded by government with regard to part time degree study and if the Tories do not pick up the cudgel then the Labour must!

———————————

Ann Limb is chief executive of the Helena Kennedy foundation

———————————

Photo: gotcredit.com