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JAPP: Editorial

Volume 4, Number 1, Winter 2006

Mary Stuart
University of Sussex

There has been a significant shift in government policy in England in relation to widening access over the last two years. The focus as Duke (2005) puts it: has shifted from those students who complete A-levels and are more than 90 per cent likely to go into HE, to the students who either do not continue beyond 16 or 17, or who take vocational qualifications, who are only 50 per cent likely to go into HE. While Foundation Degrees were part of New Labour’s strategy from their first term in office, it was recognised that more needed to be done about routes into HE. Lifelong Learning Networks, which were discussed and debated in this journal in Spring 2005 when they were in their infancy, are now features of the post-16 landscape across the country, and government and the funding council are now talking about future growth in HE being tied to ‘employer engagement’, which in some senses is still trying to address the gap between those with so-called academic qualifications and those with so-called vocational qualifications. This debate is not new to many other countries. and in some senses the academic–vocational divide is less of an issue for the provision of Higher Education in many overseas countries, even if it remains one for issues of social classification.

This edition of JAPP has a good mix of policy- and practice-focused articles. The articles directly address some of these issues. Thompson critiques New Labour’s strategies for widening access. It is a timely intervention, given that ‘top-up’ fees or potentially delayed payment of fees, has now been introduced. These are interesting times and only time will really tell if the results of the English experiment mirror others such as Australia’s and the USA’s. However, Thompson points to some contradictions in New Labour policies which will need addressing.

Knightley addresses another area of strategy for improving access which has previously been debated before in the journal (Selwyn, 2004). She argues that if students do have access to on-line learning it can facilitate participation for socially excluded groups. This debate is likely to continue for some time but Knightley’s work contributes to the research required to inform further policy and practice decisions in this area.
Support systems are under scrutiny by Figg, McAllister and Shapiro in a reflective article on a specific attempt to address the learning support needs of students at university. This article offers useful insights into who uses such services and why they chose to do so. This area is important for managers in institutions in making decisions in future provision of support. This is a valuable contribution to the debate and I hope that further research on the use of support services will be undertaken.

Hatt also directly addresses current policy matters through her investigation of credit transfer and articulation in British Columbia in Canada. She draws out very useful lessons for those developing lifelong learning networks. The key messages are that credit agreements are complex and sometimes difficult to achieve, but that trust between institutions is essential to enable students to transfer between them. Perhaps most important, good guidance systems are vital to assist students to understand our own complexities between and within institutions. This is a timely intervention and an excellent example of the purpose of this journal, where examples of practice in different settings can offer both potential policy interventions and new practices.

In the ‘Debates and discussion’ section we publish a lecture on adult guidance following on the theme of the importance of good guidance services in supporting students making their way through the quagmire of institutional practice. Brown, in speaking to colleagues, highlights a number of possible futures for guidance in ten years’ time. Further discussion and research on effective guidance is required. Different models of guidance have been developed over the years in different settings but there is still no consensus on what is required and what is the best model of practice.

In many ways this editorial is arguing for more research and debate of many of the issues being raised in this edition, but this takes me back to my comments at the start of the piece: the context of widening access has shifted again and we need to ensure our practice is informed by robust research in context and through comparison. I look forward to continued debate and reflective discussion in the journal over the next few years.

REFERENCES
Selwyn N (2004) ‘@ccess denied: ICT and widening participation’, Journal of Access Policy and Practice, vol 1 (2), pp 151–61.