We are very pleased that Michael Tomlinson, of the University of Southampton, will be giving one of the two keynote addresses at our launch seminar on 21st September. Michael’s talk will be entitled Student Experience in Context: higher education policy and the changing value of university education and we have pasted the abstract below.
‘This presentation will provide an overview of current trends and developments in higher education and their implications for student experience. The paper explores a variety of contextual and structural changes within and around higher education, including: massification, the move towards market-driven policy, the changing economic context for graduates and the continued socio-cultural divisions within the student population. The presentation will explore some of the main policy frameworks in place in UK higher education, their antecedents and potential consequences. One of the subtexts to recent HE policy has been the framing of contemporary students as rational choice-markers, consumers and self-disciplining agents who should hold their institutions to greater account. Recent policy frameworks have explicitly framed the value of higher education in almost exclusively utilitarian and performative terms (i.e. ‘value for money’, employability development etc). Drawing upon the speaker’s and other researchers’ critical insights in this field, the paper will consider some of the impacts of these changes have on student experience and the different ways in which students are positioned, and position themselves, in HE. This will include the contentious problem of the student-as-consumer and the way in which the value of higher education is framed.’
If you would like to join us on the 21st, for a day of stimulating papers, do register for a place here.