Having attended the last scheduled class of my degree, I went to see the parties vying for seats in next month's election as their representatives battled it out over education policy at a hustings organised by USSA and NUS Scotland last night. Although this "Question Time" didn't feature much of the gladiatorial mud-slinging of the BBC's version, the quality of content was high and raised some interesting issues. What I was most heartened to hear was the growing consensus that the Scottish model of university education - essentially 4 years of scratching one's arse - has ample room for reform, with the potential to make HE study more cost-effective, more attractive to students and, well, a lot less slow. With the budget not getting any bigger and everyone but the Conservatives ruling out fees, something's got to give if we want to deliver the same - let alone better - for less. Necessity is the mother of invention and thankfully there's room to innovate within the Scottish HE sector.
The fact of the matter is that for most degrees, four years is an excruciatingly drawn-out time-scale given the level of content. The fact that our compatriots south of the border manage to get it done in 3 years in fairly strong evidence of this. It's true that A-levels tend to be more specialised and provide a greater depth of knowledge compared to the breadth of learning in the Scottish Higher system meaning English, Welsh and Northern Irish students bring a greater understanding of a smaller number of subjects when they start out at university. Yet there are plenty of Scottish students that go to England for their degree and manage to get by just fine. Furthermore, for a great many students, nothing of what they learn at university is a direct follow-on from their high school syllabus; you don't need Advanced Higher economics or business studies to make it at business school, generally a solid grasp of maths and English is the only essential prerequisite (besides a fistful of UCAS points). Science and engineering requires a bit more in that you need some science Highers under your belt, yet there's a growing number of students with Advanced Highers that either go straight into second year of a degree, or spend much of first year repeating subjects they've already mastered.
So we could cut it down to three years in most subjects without having to change much at all. There's ample space for increasing the workload in the first half of a degree course to make it equivalent to the overload that students are subjected to in the latter half. I can honestly say that the most intense year of learning I've had was 5th year of school when I was taking five Highers. If we can handle it at 16, why not at university? Squeezing more teaching into less time won't reduce the cost of teaching (though it's unlikely to increase it either). What it will do however, is reduce the student support requirements. With most students taking on debt to cover living costs, the less time spent at university the better. And with less years to fund, the government could increase annual student support without spending any more per student over the lifetime of a degree.
But why stop at three years? There are universities in England experimenting with two year degrees. For many this may sound like a step too far, but hear me out. At Strathclyde, we have two 12-week semesters each year. Of those 12 weeks, most classes run for 10 of them. For 32 weeks of the year, besides the time studying for and sitting exams, students are at a loose end. This in itself is a problem. It's explicitly assumed within the Scottish model of student support that we'll all find full-time work for the 4 months of summer, which was unrealistic even before the economy took a nose dive. In reality, many students are left to scrape by during vacations, unable to find steady work and without access to student loans or other benefits. Everyone else seems to be able to cope with 5 weeks holiday a year and they have proper jobs. The trouble is that the academic calendar that most universities still adhere to is archaic - a relic of the bad old days when university was for a privileged elite who presumably had grouse to go and shoot or a grand tour of Europe lined up. Why not, instead of putting us all out to pasture for extended periods throughout the year, we have three 12-week trimesters with a little bit more squeezed into each one?
There are two fairly obvious objections to all this. Firstly, there are some degrees that just need more time. As a former chemistry student, I understand this - hours spent in labs and lots more staff contact time than those of us who just have to read books. If that's the case, then we just make those degrees longer. Does that mean a science or engineering degree will be seen as more prestigious, worth more than the business or humanities equivalent? Probably, but then it is already if we're to be honest here. At the end of the day, whether they're of equal worth or not, a BA is different from a BSc and has different teaching requirements. I'm fine with that.
The second objection goes something like this: university is about more than what you learn in the class room, all that extra time allows students to grow as individuals through extra-curricular activities and "broadening their horizons". The reality is, that's what some students get, and they're usually the ones with fairly broad horizons already. For many students, their main extra-curricular activity is working for 30 hours a week so that they can pay the rent, whilst their better-off peers get to jolly around whilst filling their CV with things that will help them get the best graduate jobs. We can justify state-funded HE on the grounds that it provides a social benefit to society, but it also confers a considerable social benefit to those students who really don't need any extra help to get ahead in life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling for the end of students' unions and sports teams - they are at the core of campus life. But they are non-academic luxuries that we afford to those already lucky enough to be at university and that are unavailable to those who are not. Going back to my school days again, I managed to find room for a full day of lessons, a part-time job, student politics, girlfriends, sports, music and a healthy level of partying. As students, we don't need endless hours of free time to develop as individuals any more than anyone else in society does.
Scotland needs a higher number of highly-educated people if it is to remain competitive at the global level. If we want to keep education free whilst making it fairer, we need to fundamentally reform the way we deliver it. Flexible delivery and technological innovation also have a key role to play (couldn't they just post the lectures on YouTube, after all?), but shortening the time it takes to get a degree could massively improve on the cost of supporting our students through their studies and reduce the barriers to those from less well-off backgrounds who are currently receiving a disservice under the current model. If you do want to go off and shoot grouse or tour Europe - take a gap year.
The views expressed in this blog are solely my own and are in no way intended to reflect the views or policies of the University of Strathcyde Students' Association.
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