When will history be in the past?

With 'A' levels, confirmation and clearing, and a nice new batch of league tables, Higher Education is enjoying it's normal high profile in August.  I'm struck, again, however by the way that the press, and perhaps ourselves, are still dividing the world up into 'old' and 'new', especially noting where a university used to be a polytechnic.

I accepted a job at a polytechnic a little over 15 years ago, but on the day I arrived there it had become a University.  15 years is a long time - why is is necessary when writing about Oxford Brookes, for example, that our local paper still feels the need the add the tag, "the former Oxford Polytechnic" to its description of us.  When will this stop?  I don't think that Bath University is now referred to as "the former Bristol College of Science and Technology", or Leeds as "the former Yorkshire College".

There are still some structural differences between the pre- and post- 1992 sectors: diferent legislation, charters vs articles of governance, pension schemes etc.  but are these real?  Is is just the league table quality judgements that seperate tiers of universities?  What do we think: is there something about 1992 that still rankles with the press?  Is there something about the polytechnic status (it can't be the word - Surrey isn't billed as the "former Battersea Polytechnic")? 

Soon we will have young people applying who were born after 1992, maybe the fact that a university has been a university for the whole of their life will be enough to consign this dividing line to history.

Mike Ratcliffe
Oxford Brookes University (formerly Oxford College of Technology)
17 August 2007

Comments

[HE Manager]

I think it's more subtle than pre-1992/post-1992. Public perception is now clearly that we have several different tiers of institution. I suggest this is because of the huge expansion of HE. When participation rates were down around 10% it didn't matter which University you went to (Oxford and Cambridge excepted, of course). If you went to university you were marked out as one of the elite (even if you spent three years in the union bar and got an ordinary degree) and employers wanted you.

Nowadays mere possession of a degree or even an honours degree isn't enough to be in this elite because of our much higher participation rates. (Witness the number of students who feel they must to top up with a Masters degree to enhance their employability.) Some other differentiator is needed. In the absence of anything else the public relies on "reputation". And the two main determinants of reputation are institutional age and research.

The institutions which have suffered from this are not the post-1992 ones, which 15 years on are increasingly comfortable with their own missions and seeing less need to ape the local pre-1992 University, but the less prestigious pre-1992 universities, the ones sitting in mid-table and in danger of being "surpassed" by some of the more dynamic new institutions.

Of course an alternative explanation is that the journalists writing these stories probably didn't attend a polytechnic.

[instant degree]

Get an Accredited College Degree In 5 Days without ever stepping foot into a college classroom or even doing coursework.No Need to Take Admission Exams, No Need To Study, Receive a College Degree for What You Already Know! Earn an associate, bachelor's, master's or even a doctorate degree without opening a single book… Even if you struggled or barely made it out of high school.

[instant degree]

Get an Accredited College Degree In 5 Days without ever stepping foot into a college classroom or even doing coursework.No Need to Take Admission Exams, No Need To Study, Receive a College Degree for What You Already Know! Earn an associate, bachelor's, master's or even a doctorate degree without opening a single book… Even if you struggled or barely made it out of high school. For more details visit us at http://www.instantdegrees.biz/ .

[DevidHussay]

Hello All visitors by means off Shubhinetwork, we provide you an opportunity of online job,off add a posting which you can do sitting at your homes it self & also free off cost. So ShubhiNetwork Welcome Peoples from Any part of the world to come and join their hand with it. Sign up Free 100ore information visit below this site
-------
DevidHussay
-----------
mls--mls

[life experience degree]

Get an Accredited College Degree In 5 Days without ever stepping foot into a college classroom or even doing coursework.No Need to Take Admission Exams, No Need To Study, Receive a College Degree for What You Already Know! Earn an associate, bachelor's, master's or even a doctorate degree without opening a single book… Even if you struggled or barely made it out of high school. For more details visit us at http://www.instantdegrees.biz/ .