On the Margins or Moving into the Mainstream? Higher Education in Further Education in England

As many students are now enrolled on higher education programmes in further education today as the total of all higher education students – whether in universities, advanced further education or teacher training – at the time of the Robbins Report in 1963 when the advance towards mass higher education first got under way. These programmes make a vital contribution to the diversity and, in particular, the accessibility and flexibility of higher education provision in England in 2009. Yet higher education in further education receives limited, and dwindling, policy attention. It is sometimes treated as a marginal, and even anomalous, provision. Yet the realisation of a truly lifelong learning system will depend crucially on the local delivery of higher education that is perhaps better tailored to social demand and economic imperatives.