'Holding the door open' for continuing education in the UK: Strategies for survival until its time comes again.

Abstract

Higher education (HE) in the UK, as in other parts of the world, is now big business, with revenues measured in the many ?billions annually. Organisational and cultural changes that have accompanied this 'new world' for HE represent the rise of a 'business model' of the university that is far more engaged with income generation than in the even relatively recent past. However, while increases in tuition fees have not put off young people from applying for and taking up university places, mature student recruitment has dropped precipitously. Alongside this, commitments to community and lifelong models of learning have fared badly. Continuing education services, for example, are not well positioned to contribute significantly to their host universities' income streams. The trends accompanying these changes have also affected notions of skills acquisition and even how 'learning' itself is conceptualised. This paper briefly considers the historical trajectory of continuing education as well as potential strategies that might be mobilised to make its position in the modern university more secure.