Tag Archives: Role of HE

The future of rural Europe?

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Have you ever wanted to be a Member of Parliament: no, me neither! But last week I participated in the second European Rural Parliament, in Schärding, Austria, as one of five delegates from rural England. This was very different to how we usually imagine a Parliament. At its heart is intended to be the voice of rural people, asserting the need for partnership between civil society and governments in addressing the big societal challenges. This innovative, and inspiring, process may be of interest for social movements and social renewal in many spheres – not just the rural.

ERP

The idea originated in the Nordic countries, and the Swedish experience in particular caught the imagination of other countries, initially Estonia and Hungary and then many more who now hold rural parliaments – from Scotland, Netherlands and USA to Lithuania, Slovenia and Cyprus. This European Rural Parliament was held under the auspices of the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, and co-funded by the European Commission through the Europe for Citizens programme. It was jointly initiated by three pan-European rural networks, ERCA, PREPAE and ELARD.

This European Rural Parliament process began with national campaigns in 36 European countries, with each campaign focused on organising an “upward cascade of ideas” which “truly draws upon the hopes and concerns of rural people”. These campaigns varied greatly in depth and detail, according to the national context: for example, Scotland relayed the main conclusions from last year’s Scottish Rural Parliament, while Portugal’s national rural network Minha Terra organised more than 170 local or regional events with nearly 4000 participants. These ideas from the grassroots were synthesised at national level, for use in national campaigning, and then at European level last week, leading to the agreement and affirmation of a European Rural Manifesto. The 250 delegates to the European Rural Parliament from all the countries involved in the cascade of ideas drew on the contents of the national reports during two intensive days of workshops and plenary meetings, distilling their contents and then debating line by line, finalising and adopting the European Rural Manifesto. We also endorsed the broad contents of a book “All Europe Shall Live – the voice of rural people”, which synthesises the national reports and draws out the main issues.

The generous spirit in which all these discussions and debates took place was impressive and inspiring, reflecting but also generating mutual respect, energy and enthusiasm. The process reflected the diversity of rural Europe but also asserted common values and a shared vision. The Manifesto calls upon the EU and national governments for full recognition of the right of rural communities to a quality of life, standard of living and voice equal to that of urban populations.

“Our vision for the future of rural Europe is of vibrant, inclusive and sustainable rural communities, supported by diversified rural economies and by effective stewardship of high-quality environment and cultural heritage. We believe that rural communities, modelled on that vision, can be major long-term contributors to a prosperous, peaceful, just and equitable Europe, and to a sustainable global society.   The pursuit of our vision demands in every country a refreshed and equitable partnership between people and governments.  We, the rural people and organisations, know that we have a responsibility to give leadership and to act towards our own collective well-being. But we also fairly demand that governments at all levels, including the European institutions, work to make this crucial partnership effective.”

The Manifesto goes on to address the social, economic, political and environmental challenges facing rural Europe while also emphasising the potential contribution rural areas and people can make to European and national as well as local and regional goals, if supported by governments and international institutions. Importantly it asserted the rights of people, whoever they are and wherever they live, and the shared responsibility of governments and civil society to promote human flourishing in rural and urban areas alike.

Both the Rural Manifesto and the report, All Europe Shall Live – the voice of rural people, can be found on the European Rural Parliament website, along with much more information.

Professor Mark Shucksmith, Director of Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal

Building up STEAM

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Professor Rachel Armstrong is Professor of Experimental Architecture in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, and her Idea for an Incoming Government is to put the A back into STEM education. In British education, but also in our society, the arts play a part that fundamentally enriches, and Professor Armstrong urges an incoming government not to allow our cultural landscape to turn into a tedious shade of grey. Read about the Institute for Social Renewal’s other contributions to policy on our website.Building up STEAM

What’s the problem?

In a technologically advanced age, STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) subjects are regarded as a fundamental way to boost the technological competence of our workforce. As a result, they have taken a central position in British education. While the original educational concerns that forged STEM promoted a more widespread uptake of these subjects, other commentators suggest that the term embodies synergies between these disciplines, which highlight the importance of cross-disciplinary collaborations in the innovation process.

After a period of activism where the innovative potential of collaborative practices invited the introduction of ‘A’ for arts into the acronym shortly after its conception, we find that our core competencies are abbreviated back down to ‘left’ brain activities. While absolute distinctions between ‘left’ (logical) and ‘right’ (creative) in itself is a controversial claim, the generalization symbolizes broad differences between the sciences and arts. The consequences, unintentional or otherwise, of omitting the ‘A’ may push us back to the Enlightenment views of a knowledge dichotomy that Snow challenged over half a century ago in his 1959, Two Cultures Rede lecture.

Presumably, the climate that has allowed the arts to wither from centre-stage education relates to a streamlining of investment that appears more directly related to immediate returns in employment, global competitiveness and economic growth. Newcastle City Council is living testimony to such measures, having had its creative arts funding slashed by 50% in 2013, provoking widespread outcry.

The solution

It is imperative that ‘A’ is immediately reinstated. Even Ada Lovelace herself, who is attributed to designing the first computer program and has become a figurehead for the recruitment of young women into STEM subjects, advocated a ‘poetical science’. It is also not sufficient to assume that the creativity associated with the arts and humanities will inevitably be infused into scientific subjects without specifically creating funded opportunities for this to occur and to keep on happening.

Moreover, justifying arts in purely utilitarian terms such as facilitating technological innovation and leadership in an efficient workforce completely fails to acknowledge their enduring enrichment of society and culture. Additionally, the future of the arts should be in no way enslaved to its enlistment to STEAM.

The evidence

Civilizations are more than a function of their economic growth. Their vigour is acquired through the hearts of their communities – and passions are not won by facts. So, while science claims a necessary position of neutrality, objectivity and distance from their studies, the arts are deeply immersed in their subjects. The objective goal of achieving technological advancement without investing in shared values will only take us so far in uniting people.

In this age of great challenges, it is imperative that we can think beyond the limits of rational solutions and deal with the uncertainties of our situation by venturing into unknown territories. The consequences of starving our students and civic communities of these skills are far more insidious and enduring than facing any financial crisis.

STEAM is not just a procedural set of issues aimed at managing the meaningful integration of arts with science but also draws attention to investments made in the arts at a national and European governmental level. The scientification of our society is embodied in a recent international conference entitled ‘The future of Europe is Science’ that proposed to address subjects such as ‘How will we keep healthy? How are we going to live, learn, work and interact in the future? How will we produce and consume and how will we manage resources?’. While many aspects of our lives can (within limits) be evaluated objectively, such as average income, or employment statistics, these questions cannot be exclusively served through an objective, empirical scientific analysis. Indeed, a Europe without humanities and arts feels a chillingly soulless place. Right now, we are faced with spreading neoliberal malignancy that is turning our cultural landscape into a tedious shade of grey. It is reducing our daily lives to the pursuit of one bottom line – money – where we are aware of the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

If we are to survive what is likely to be an extremely challenging century, where we face many contradictions that do not clearly present us with logical solutions, such as reducing the gap between the have and have not’s, tackling dramatic weather changes, combating drastic resource challenges and managing ideological conflicts, then we’ll need to be extremely imaginative across all disciplines. It is only through actively nurturing creativity from an early age that we will be able to do more with less, produce new kinds of value, work productively in partnership with nature and find new ways of working within constraints.

Importantly, while we actively acknowledge our limits, we must also relentlessly pursue new ways to transcend them. This simply cannot be done purely objectively. It requires personal investment, which means believing in common goals and embracing the seemingly impossible. If we are to protect and restore our heritage, our community and our faith in humankind then we need a different toolset that creates a counterbalance within STEM, one that that refuses to be answerable to sciences, yet also has the capacity to potentiate them, so that we can remain critical of developments – while also fulfilling our passions.

We should indeed build on firm foundations that ensure that our workforce, leaders and next generations have the intellectual and practical skills to be competitive on a global scale, but we must also sow the seeds of our culture with the imaginative flexibility to deal with the unknown, uphold a humane quality of life and to invent into new spaces that have never before existed. So, let us not forget the broader needs of our society when thinking about our institutional goals, national productivity and shared futures – and urgently invest in the creative capacity of people by putting the ‘A’ back into STEM.

PROJECT TEACH: Applying Intelligence to Teacher Education

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Project Teach

As part of our ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government’ series, Rachel Lofthouse from the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLaT)within the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, writes about the pressing need for supportive improvements to the current teacher training infrastructure.

What is the problem?

A change is needed in our education system. Rapid policy developments prioritise the role of schools as providers of workplace learning, affecting the experiences of and infrastructure for teacher training. Even those professionals who support ‘on the job’ training for teachers appreciate that meeting the learning and social needs of children and young people has to be every school’s priority. In the current system new teachers are immediately exposed to the performative culture of schools, having their individual successes and failures measured and graded from the moment they arrive.

In some cases this creates significant anxiety. Student teachers may not be encouraged to innovate and instead they simply learn how to survive. Instead of new teachers being a source of inspiration and innovation, they adopt normative practices, and their potential and energy is not garnered for their individual benefit or that of the schools.  In the worst cases, instead of building the necessary professional capacity to work flexibly to meet ever changing demands of the job, they become less resilient to the stresses of the job.

The solution

Student teachers should be educated not only individually but also in teams, tackling real-life workplace challenges through projects based on research, development and practice. The teams would be supported by co-coaches (experienced teachers and academic tutors working together) who enable their team to develop collaborative, empowering and supportive relationships, as well as the knowledge and skills required for them to tackle the genuine challenges of teaching.  The responsibility for the professional learning of all student teachers in a team becomes a collective one; each team is aiming for the best possible outcomes in terms of professional learning, pupil outcomes, and school development.

Through PROJECT-TEACH, intelligent thinking would be applied to teacher training, drawing on the principles of successful learning organisations, coaching and project-based learning:

  • Post-graduate student teachers would form project teams hosted by, and learning on behalf of, an alliance of schools, supported by ‘co-coaches’ – providing combined professional and academic expertise and drawing on principles of servant leadership. The motto of this approach is to ‘gather intelligence and use it intelligently’.
  • The project teams would work through a number of core projects spanning the school year, based on the principles of ‘project-based learning’.  Each project would include the need to teach, and as the year progressed this would be over more sustained periods and include working with learners across the relevant age range and with complex needs.  This teaching comes as a culmination of research and development, making it more evidence-based and allowing for systematic evaluation of outcomes. Student teachers would be registered as post-graduate students, and gain academic awards as well as evidence of meeting professional standards as a result of PROJECT-TEACH.
  • Learning is a social process, and PROJECT-TEACH would enable new teachers to develop skills and knowledge through collaboration on authentic and rich learning tasks set in the context of the workplace. The project briefs would be planned by drawing on the combined expertise of the professional and academic co-coaches who would design them to meet the ambitions of the host schools as well as to take account of the development stage of the new teachers. New teachers would meet the Teacher Standards through coherent development opportunities rather than through atomised practice.  The ‘standards’ would develop significance in terms of long-term occupational capacity, rather than simply as a checklist of time and context limited competencies.

PROJECT-TEACH sits firmly in the current Department for Education policy of creating a ‘Self-improving school led system’, in that it would be ‘evidence based, data rich, sustainable, focused, attract and retain talent and create a collective moral purpose’.  It does however challenge some of the current practices of teacher education.  While the Carter Review of Initial Teacher Training (DfE, 2015) recognised that the ‘challenge for the nation is to maintain a supply of outstanding teachers so that every child has the opportunity to be taught by inspirational, skilled teachers throughout their time in school’ (p.3), it lacked imagination in its proposals for re-creating teacher education.  PROJECT-TEACH can be afforded within current budgets; student teachers pay their training fee, and gain DfE bursaries according to prior qualification.  It is a matter of ensuring that the resource is deployed differently to support the approach and ensure excellent outcomes.

 

The evidence 

  • Billett (2011) identifies three dimensions to workplace learning; the practice curriculum, the practice pedagogies, and the personal epistemologies.  PROJECT-TEACH would act on each dimension by developing a curriculum based on project-based learning and by addressing the student teachers’ learning needs through more open engagement with authentic complex tasks.
  • Student teachers would be supported by expert co-coaches drawing on the principles of effective teacher coaching (Lofthouse et.al, 2010) and servant leadership through which they prioritise the needs of the student teachers as their main professional role. . This would counter the impacts of the pervasive performativity culture (Ball, 2003) and detrimental practices of judge mentoring (Hobson & Malderez, 2013) in which judgements made by experienced teachers are rapidly revealed to the novice student teachers undermining the potential of mentoring processes to support development.
  • PROJECT-TEACH would develop new teachers’ resilience by enabling them to develop positive collective teacher efficacy and beliefs, which can help to mitigate the deleterious effects associated with socio-economic deprivation (Gibbs & Powell, 2012) and as such would help to address the problems in teacher supply and retention in England.
  • PROJECT-TEACH would support schools to become learning organisations where staff and students ‘continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free’ (http://infed.org/mobi/peter-senge-and-the-learning-organization/).
  • PROJECT-TEACH would build a ‘culture of trust (and challenge) in schools to enable professional learning of teachers to prosper’ which was recognised as key by the 2015 Sutton Trust’s ‘Developing Teachers report and thus encourage the essential components of professional learning of ‘creativity, innovation and a degree of risk-taking’ (Major, 2015).

We need to put energy and vitality back into educating (not simply training) new teachers, ensuring that those that enter the profession gain relevant expertise but also the experience and insight to fulfil their potential role to transform schools for the next generation, not simply replicate the working practices of yesterday’s schools.

 

References:

  • Ball, S. J. (2003) The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215-228
  • Billett, S (2011) Workplace curriculum: practice and propositions, in F. Dorchy, D Gijbels. Theories of Learning for the Workplace, Routledge, London (pp.17-36)
  • DfE (2015) The Carter review of initial teacher training (ITT)
  • Gibbs, S., & Powell, B. (2012) Teacher Efficacy and Pupil Behaviour: the structure of teachers’ individual and collective efficacy beliefs and their relationship with numbers of children excluded from school. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 564-584.
  • Hobson, A.J. (2013) Judgementoring and other threats to realizing the potential of school-based mentoring in teacher education, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, Vol 2 [2] 89-108
  • Lofthouse, R., Leat, D and Towler, C., (2010)  Improving Teacher Coaching in Schools; A Practical Guide, CfBT Learning Trust
  • Lofthouse, R. & Thomas, U. (2014) Mentoring student teachers; a vulnerable workplace learning practice, International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education Vol. 3 (3) pp. 201 – 218
  • Lofthouse, R., Thomas, U. & Cole, S. (2011) Creativity and Enquiry in Action: a case study of cross-curricular approaches in teacher education. Teacher Education Advancement Network Journal, Vol. 2(1), pp.1-21.
  • Major, L.E. (2015)  Developing Teachers; Improving professional development for teachers, The Sutton Trust

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Linking Higher Education and Local Communities

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In this blog series ‘Ideas for an Incoming Government’ Emeritus Professor John Goddard OBE, Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, Newcastle University, writes about the role universities play within their communities.Civic uni

Many communities are facing difficult times in terms of slow growth, lack of jobs and entrenched poverty, but growing numbers now have links to one or more higher education institutions (HEIs). These can be ‘anchor institutions’, contributing to local job generation directly as an employer across a range of occupations and indirectly through new business formation, providing advice to existing businesses, attracting inward investment and developing skills in the local labour market.  They also can contribute to social cohesion through work with the community and voluntary sectors, with schools in deprived neighbourhoods and within the cultural and creative sectors. HEIs, working alongside the local public and private sector, can play a key leadership role in local civil society. We define such institutions as civic universities or colleges, tackling societal challenges on a local as well as global level, such as poverty, health, environmental sustainability and demographic change.

What is the problem?

Unfortunately the national and international higher education market place within which HEIs operate does not incentivise them to operate in this way and their potential as anchor institutions may not be fully realised. For most universities the highest priority is position in the national and international league tables. These are strongly influenced by academic research ratings and student satisfaction scores. Community engagement is relegated to a ‘third mission’ after research and teaching – by definition an inferior position. Colleges may be more locally involved but are not incentivised to be part of a local higher education system complementing the work of universities. And within the rapidly evolving market place there may be financial winners and losers; some institutions will struggle to attract sufficient numbers of students, particularly full fee-paying overseas applicants. This could leave them vulnerable to bankruptcy, with insufficient resources from the Funding Council to provide assistance. This problem could be especially acute in smaller cities with a weaker economic base, highly dependent on the university as an anchor institution.  In the future, regulation of this market must be sensitive to the contribution HEIs can make to meeting the needs of different places over and beyond the current focus solely on widening participation in higher education.

What is the solution?

To mobilise the full potential of HEIs we recommend a national fund is established, subscribed to from various central government departmental budgets to which HEIs wishing to be designated as civic institutions can have access. Such institutions should be required to introduce institution wide strategies for civic engagement embedded into teaching and research based on a self- assessment with the help of peers and partners.  HEIs in receipt of this funding should have a  civic university ‘contract’ with government defined in terms of delivery of local, national and international societal impacts.

In parallel, local authorities, LEPs and other centrally funded bodies such as Innovate UK and the Arts Council should be incentivised to establish formal partnership agreements with  HEIs designed to underpin their role in local social, economic, cultural and environmental development. Central government should establish a cross-departmental group to monitor the impact of universities as anchor institutions in local communities arising from a wide range of non-geographically specific policies (e.g. science, culture, health, immigration, trade). The group should establish a national leadership programme to develop a cadre of people with the boundary spanning skills to work in this area.

There are a range of current national policies that contribute to this agenda, such as HEFCE’s Higher Education Innovation and Catalyst funds, Innovate UK’s Catapults and RCUK’s Beacons of Public Engagement, but these lack any geographical specificity. More, therefore, needs to be done to formalise the link between universities local business and civil society in order to address societal challenges on a regional and national level.

The evidence

The OECD has gathered extensive evidence based on 40 case studies of the link between HEIs and city and regional development summarised in its report Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged. This work has informed a new European Commission guide on Connecting Universities to Regional Growth, which in turn has influenced many member states in mobilising universities to contribute to the design and delivery of their national and regional smart specialisation strategies.

Until recently, the focus of evidence gathering has been on the contribution of HEIs to business development but a recent large scale survey by the UK’s Innovation Research Centre (led by Cambridge and Imperial College) has demonstrated that the bulk of academic engagement has been with a much wider range of interest groups in civil society.

This has been confirmed by a survey of the intended impact of academic research in six universities in three English cities, carried out for a book on The University and the City[1]. In- depth interviews for this book have revealed significant contributions of universities to urban challenges of environmental sustainability, public health and cultural vitality made possible by regional funding streams that no longer exist.

Recent analysis linking the potential vulnerability of universities in the higher education market place has revealed some institutions to be located in vulnerable places highly dependent on HE. But in all these studies it is clear that civic engagement is not fully recognised and rewarded. Such evidence is leading to a re-appraisal of the triple helix model of universities working exclusively with business and government and instead to propose a quadruple helix model which embraces civil society and social as well as technological innovation.

[1] Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2013) The University and the City, (Routledge, London)

Notes to editors: The views stated are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Newcastle University.

Further Information

Recent Publications:

Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2013) The University and the City, (Routledge, London)

 Articles in refereed Journals:

  • Goddard, J and Puukka, J. (2008) ‘The engagement of higher education institutions in regional development: an overview of the opportunities and challenges’ Higher Education Management and Policy 20, (2) p. 11-42
  • Goddard, J., Vallance, P. and Puukka, J. (2011) ‘Experience of engagement between universities and cities: drivers and barriers in three European cities’, Built Environment 37, (3), p.299-316.
  • Goddard, J., Robertson, D. and Vallance, P. (2012) ‘Universities, Technology and Innovation Centres, and regional development: the case of the North East of England’, Cambridge Journal of Economics 36, (3), p.609-627
  • Goddard, J., Kempton, L. and Vallance, P. (2013) ‘Universities and Smart Specialisation: challenges, tensions, and opportunities for the innovation strategies of European regions’, Ekonomiaz  38, (2), p. 82-101.
  • Goddard, J., Coombes, M., Kempton L. and Vallance, P (2014) ‘Universities as anchor institutions in cities in a turbulent funding environment: vulnerable institutions and vulnerable places in England’ Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society  7 (2),  p. 307-325

Official reports:

  • Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged, OECD, Paris, 2007
  • Connecting Universities to Regional Growth, European Commission, Brussels, 2011
  • Guide to Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation (RIS3), European Commission, Brussels, 2012

Book chapters:

  • Goddard, J. and Vallance, P. (2011) ‘Universities and Regional Development’, in Pike, A., Rodríguez-Pose, A. and Tomaney, J. (eds.) Handbook of Local and Regional Development. (Routledge, London).
  • Goddard, J., Kempton, L. and Vallance, P. (2013) ‘The Civic University: Connecting the Global and the Local’, in Olechnicka, A., Capello, R. and Gorzelak, G. (eds.) Universities, Cities and Regions. (Routledge, London).
  • Goddard, J., Kempton,L. and Marlow, D. (2014) ‘LEPs, universities and Europe’ in Hardy, S. and Ward,M,.(eds.) Where next for local economic partnerships? Smith Institute, London

 Research Reports:

  • Goddard, J. Re-inventing the Civic University  NESTA, London
  • Goddard, J., Howlett., Vallance, P. and Kennie, T. ( 2010) Researching and Scoping a Higher Education and Civic Leadership Development Programme.  Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, London
  • Goddard, J., Burquel, N. and Kelly,U. (2012) Universities and Regional Innovation: a toolkit to assist with building collaborative partnerships. Final Report of the EU-Drivers for a Regional Innovation Platform, European Centre for the Strategic Management of Universities (ESMU), Brussels
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