Higher education in further education: delivering higher education in a further education context—a study of five South West colleges

This paper comprises a summary of research into the teaching of higher education (HE) courses in further education (FE) learning environments. A comprehensive study of college management and teaching staff attitudes together with teaching practices, pedagogy and research was carried out with six partner colleges of the University of Plymouth where a substantial amount of HE teaching was delivered. A questionnaire was developed, piloted and distributed to all staff teaching HE in the colleges, with a similar but separate questionnaire being used for management. Five colleges responded. We present data relating to the differences in teaching practice and pedagogy between FE and HE teaching and the problems of realizing these in FE learning environments. We also look at the ways in which independent study and critical reflection among learners are developed. The questions of research and scholarly activity and their relevance to HE teaching are addressed. Considerable challenges are faced by staff teaching mainly FE courses, on standard FE teaching contracts, being expected to deliver HE courses effectively. We also consider the challenges of delivering ‘a real HE experience’ in FE environments and those involved with going on to university afterwards.     

警示教育在高校学生管理工作中的运用

大学生违纪率的高低,可以反映出高校学生管理工作的成效如何。有效地减少和防止大学生违纪,是高校学生管理工作要解决的一个主要问题。开展警示教育是预防大学生违纪违规的有效途径,警示教育是学生管理工作的一项重要内容,应坚持教育形式的多样性、教育方法的灵活性,实现教育效果的持久性。     

澳洲高校合并后校园文化的培养与重建

高校合并现象引起了学术界的高度重视，如何处理和缓解由此带来的行政管理、教学、科研等诸方面的问题和矛盾，是对高校管理提出的新的挑战，其中合并后校园化建设更是其中一个不容忽视的方面。本着重介绍先于我国高校完成合并的澳大利亚高校的校园化培养，以及其校园化对高校实质性融合产生的作用等问题，说明校园化建设对培养新组建高校的忠实度(loyalty)和一体感的重要性。虽然中澳两国在基本国情、高校管理等方面存在着许多差异，但认真了解、分析澳洲高校的管理经验，对我们仍有许多可借鉴之处。     

Higher Education Mergers: Integrating Organisational Cultures and Developing Appropriate Management Styles

Research evidence indicates that an unusually broad range of issues take on strategic significance in a merger and that organisational cultures are critical to the successful integration of staff, students and other stakeholders within a newly combined higher education institution (HEI). This study was based on two specialist higher education (HE) colleges seeking to expand through merger in order to meet the revised criteria for university status in England. It sought a better understanding of the similarities and differences between the management styles and organisational cultures of the two colleges and an assessment of the significance of these for the proposed merger. The main conclusion of the study was that management styles and initiatives needed to be mindful of the existing cultures and subcultures of the two colleges, otherwise there was a risk that the status and efficiency of the new HEI might be improved at the expense of its academic and scholarly development.     

关于高校本科旅游管理专业教育的思考

以多数高校旅游管理本科教育招生难和就业率下降为背景,反思了本科教育自身存在的问题,探寻了与高职院校专业教育存在的差距,提出高校本科旅游管理专业教育改革必须明确本科人才培养的目标定位,加快专业化培养进程,促进科研成果转化,力求专业设置对应市场需求。     

'Scholarship is the word that dare not speak its name' Lecturers' Experiences of Teaching on a Higher Education Programme in a Further Education College

The article examines provision of higher education within further education institutions from the point of the view of lecturers working on an HE programme. It is based on a small-scale research project carried out by a full-time practitioner/part-time researcher. Focusing on a Combined Studies degree programme, a series of interviews explored the experiences and perceptions of lecturers teaching on a non-vocational higher education programme within a predominantly further education environment. In the context of low morale within colleges of further education, the staff interviewed demonstrated a remarkable level of enthusiasm and personal commitment to HE teaching. There was a strong sense of pride in the value of higher education in an FE college. The research indicates there are key differences between the lecturers in this study and their colleagues in pure HEIs in terms of professional identity. A number of difficulties in managing the FE/HE divide were referred to by the respondents. These focused on difficulties in relation to swapping between levels, the degree of commitment the lecturers felt the college management gave to HE provision, and isolation from colleagues internally and externally. Inevitably, more general resource issues arose. Whilst acknowledging the reality of the cumulative underfunding of FE, the recommendations are in terms of practicable actions to address some of the other issues raised by the research.     

发达国家院校合并的发展经验及其效果分析

从上世纪70年代开始,许多发达国家都掀起了院校合并的热潮。本文介绍了国外院校合并的发展经验:院校合并采取的形式多样;院校合并主要是在非大学里进行或者是非大学被大学所吸收;院校领导在院校合并后采取措施来整合和重建学术文化。     

高校合并热的冷思考

高校合并作为我国现阶段高等教育发展中出现的新生事物，有着特殊的时代背景，目前高校合并绝大多数是政府行为。高校合并对推动我国高等教育事业的发展有积极意义，但也存在一些问题。深入思考这些问题，对中国现阶段院校调整的健康发展具有重大的理论和实践意义。     

University mergers in Russia from the students’ perspective: uncertainty and loss of identity

University mergers are a common practice in higher education systems around the world. Merger-related aspects such as the transformation of organizational and administrative structures, the impact on the internal funding allocation mechanisms, or changes in academic strategies and profiles, are well researched. However, the role of students in university mergers and their understanding of these processes are hardly investigated. The aim of this study was to identify how students are affected by merger processes. Through the conceptual framework, integrating university organizational identity theory and studies of the human side of mergers and acquisitions, this article encompasses six institutional cases in Russian higher education. These cases were selected to illustrate different scenarios of university mergers and accordingly to analyze the variety of student experience in changing universities. The project’s data included the results of document analysis, analysis of the merged universities’ representation in the public space, interviews and focus-groups with university administrators and with students who studied during the process of university merger. It highlights such perceived effects of mergers as anxiety and perceived unfairness due to post-merger changes, activization of we-they opposition between the students of merged universities, loss or transformation of organizational identity, and clash of university cultures.

     

Primary School Teacher Training in the European Community: an overview of recent developments

The colleges of education for primary school teachers in The Netherlands have gone through several mergers in the space of just a few years. Many colleges of education became part of a polytechnic. The authors studied how the specific characteristics of the education of primary school teachers can show to full advantage in a large institute of higher vocational education. In the Dutch situation as well as that of the other countries of the European Community (England and the Federal Republic of Germany in particular) the phenomena ‘integration’ and ‘differentiation’ have been studied. The authors concluded that mergers of primary school teacher training colleges can be a serious threat to the educational identity of teacher training as a whole. Holding to as well as giving up the educational identity does not guarantee that the specific characteristics will be kept.     

高校突发公共事件应急管理的问题及对策分析

高等学校是国家培养人才的阵地,它对突发公共事件的应急处理效果直接关系到大学生的身体安全和心理安全,也关系到高校的办学水平和社会影响力,更关系到整个社会的良性运行和健康发展。高校面对突发公共事件必须加强应急管理,要在提高认识、健全机制、制定预案、增强能力、多方联动等方面下功夫,确保对突发公共事件的处置及时、高效和妥当。     

Resource Dependence in the Further Education Marketplace: considerations for the managers of college mergers

Abstract

In 1993 all institutions designated by the government as ‘further education providers’ were removed from local authority control (under the provisions of The Further and Higher Education Act 1992). All such colleges are now responsible for institutional self‐management, a task which, in the context of the current post‐16 education environment, presents a number of challenges.

Allied to a range of government generated targets, further education (FE) institutions find themselves subject to increasingly intense competition from their perceived local rivals. This is significant because a substantial proportion of college funding is based upon student recruitment (as well as the retention upon and the completion of programmes by students). Thus, there is an inevitable emphasis placed upon competing for the available student cohort. At the same time the FE sector is also subject to wider government measures, including the ongoing capital expenditure cuts for the sector introduced in the 1995 Budget.

In the context of considerable external influence and growing competition, many FE colleges are consequently exploring alternative strategies for coping with a complex and uncertain environment. In particular, a growing number of institutions have examined a merger strategy as a response to the pressures within the sector. By 1998, it has been suggested that 100 FE colleges will disappear due to college mergers. It would therefore appear that integration between institutions is at least being explored by a number of colleges, whilst it has been undertaken by a small number of other providers of FE.

The main focus of this article is to examine the motives of colleges seeking to merge with another FE institution, to identify the advantages and disadvantages associated with such a strategy and to explore the important issues for institutions involved in the merger process.

The article is a preliminary study of college mergers within FE and will initially note that the FE market is fundamentally different to an unrestricted, free market. In the context of government regulation it will be asserted, using a resource‐dependence model, that colleges are locked into a financial dependence upon the government. In turn, the government is then able to demand that specific criteria are pursued across the FE sector. On this basis, it will be noted that the merger is an increasingly prominent strategic option for those institutions responding to this financial dependence.

Given the nature of the FE market, the established resource dependence and the characteristics of FE colleges, the article will subsequently examine the perceived advantages and disadvantages derived by institutions pursuing a merger strategy. This will then be extended to embrace an examination of the key management issues that colleges will encounter when considering integration.

The article will therefore be of interest to academics and practitioners focusing on the nature of the external environment and markets in the public sector, the response of FE colleges to markets, competition and the government, and those examining mergers as a strategic option.     

构建公办高校与民办高校共同协调发展新格局

本文对公办高校迅猛扩展的作用及隐忧的问题作了分析；提出了公办高校与民办高校共同协调发展新格局的构想，即公办高校在部分本专科教育市场为民办高校“让一步”，使教育发展在整体上“进三步”的构想途径；阐述了提高民办高校办学水平的有效措施是政策支持和监督管理；探讨了独立学院与民办高校也应该协调发展的问题。     

校企混编模式下高职院校学生顶岗实习管理研究

顶岗实习是高职院校推进校企合作、工学结合人才培养的重要途径。本文探讨了基于校企混编模式下对高职院校学生顶岗实习进行管理的必要性,分析了高职院校学生顶岗实习教育管理存在的问题,提出了对高职院校学生顶岗实习开展校企混编管理的机制、方法和手段,促进高职院校人才培养体系的完善和人才培养质量的提高。     

The assessment of lesson plans in teacher education: a case study in assessment validity and reliability

This paper forms part of an exploration of assessment on one part‐time higher education (HE) course: an in‐service, professional qualification for teachers and trainers in the learning and skills sector which is delivered on a franchise basis across a network of further education colleges in the north of England. This paper proposes that the validity and reliability of portfolio‐based assessment, a key component of many HE programmes in addition to the course being researched here, is contestable. Analysis of the processes of compiling portfolios for assessment, through the conceptual framework of the New Literacy Studies, suggests that the ways in which portfolios are assessed and the ways in which the crucial requisites of validity and reliability are assigned to them, mask complexities and contradictions in their creation by the student. This paper argues for a new, critical analysis of portfolio production and raises a number of questions about the validity, reliability and authenticity of the assessment process that the portfolios reify.     

高校合并的内在逻辑机制分析

在中国高等教育发展过程中出现过两次较大规模的院校合并,这种现象是特定历史时代的产物。高校合并从宏观到微观上都对高校的发展带来了影响,如规模扩张、体制改革、学科融合、学生事务管理等。文章从组织社会学视角对高校合并现象进行分析,认为大学合并是受组织的效率机制、制度环境和高校的社会网络关系的协同影响导致的。     

Mergers and Linkages in British Higher Education

In its pursuit of the cost-effective expansion of higher education (HE), the British Conservative government has strongly encouraged competition and has opened the HE sector to the influence of market forces. This policy has certainly helped to drive down unit costs but it also has an inherent destructive potential which requires to be mitigated by a whole spectrum of collaborative structures. To study the interplay between competition and co-operation in British higher education, it is useful to focus on the relationships between higher education institutions (HEIs) as manifested in mergers (both actual, proposed and ‘failed’) and the various forms of inter-institutional linkage which are leading to a re-alignment of HEIs in the post-binary era. A number of forms of linkage, stopping short of merger, are defined and illustrated: for example, affiliation, validation, accreditation, franchising and access arrangements, and the important function of consortia is underlined. However, because they exist within a matrix which is basically competitive, such forms of co-operation are subject to stress and disruption. The British higher education system manifests an unusual degree of flexibility which has enabled it to adapt organically to new policies and challenges. It is more permeable than that of most other European countries, but this permeability is gradually being endangered by increasing UK reliance on formal legislation in HE. Experience abroad, notably in Australia, indicates that wholesale dissolution of boundaries, combined with fierce forms of competition, can in the end lead to serious deterioration in educational standards. A balance between competition and co-operation must be sought, but can never be ‘established’ once and for all because external circumstances require it to be constantly re-adjusted. The research on which this paper is based was carried out with funds from the Economic and Social Research Council and from the Faculty of Education Research Committee of the University of Ulster.     

高职院校家政专业教育存在的问题及对策

在家政专业学历教育中,开展多种形式的跨区域互动合作,与家政行业企业加强合作与交流,实行订单培养,是促进家政专业发展的重要保障;学校在开设家政学历教育专业的基础上,开展以社区为依托的家政教育与职业培训,是推动高职家政专业发展的重要举措。     

Widening participation on early childhood studies and early years education degrees

This paper describes an evaluation of a joint project in 2001 between Sheffield Hallam University, regional further education (FE) colleges and the Building Pathways team. The project's purpose was to develop clear progression routes into higher education (HE) for FE students studying on Advanced Diploma, Higher National Certificate and Higher National Diploma courses in childcare and education. The work reported here represents the first part of the evaluation and seeks to illuminate some of the key factors involved in translating principles and objectives associated with widening participation into reality. The main aims of this evaluation were to review the process by which a set of widening participation agreements were reached, to identify key factors for success and to ascertain any issues arising from and during the process itself. The evaluation also sought to elicit information from respondents concerning possible future strategies to further develop the agreed progression routes. The second phase of the evaluation (2002–2003) will focus on the student experience and seek to understand factors that enable or hinder the success of those students who take advantage of these routes. The paper is set in the context of national widening participation policy developments since 1997, with FE and university responses to these developments relating to early childhood studies and early years education degrees. The paper discusses factors, identified by participants in the project, that facilitated or hindered attempts to widen and improve access for regional FE students onto the HE early years provision at Sheffield Hallam University.     

以德治校——新时期高校教育、管理的重大课题

以德治校是新时期高校教育、管理的重大课题,也是完善治校方略的一次创新。当前,在推进依法治校的进程中,重扬以德治校的理念,努力转变高校教育、管理的观念和做法,不断探索新时期高校教育、管理的新途径、新内容和新方法具有重大的现实意义。