University Alliance announce vision on how to turbo-charge lifelong learning
Read Lifelong learning: a blueprint for success here.
University Alliance, which represents 14 of the UK’s leading professional and technical universities, has today (5 May 2022) released its LLE Blueprint. The blueprint is a vision for the successful delivery of the Department for Education’s proposed Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE).
The blueprint imagines the changes and new initiatives which could turbo-charge post-18 education under the LLE, making education more accessible to all learners throughout their lives and delivering the skills the country needs for the future.
Key goals outlined in the paper are that the LLE should be:
- Accessible: everyone should be able to access the education that will support them to achieve their goals.
- Demand-driven: educational offerings should align with the needs of employers and meet learner demand
- Outcomes-focused: there should be clear and cohesive pathways to educations and career outcomes.
- High-quality: learners should feel confident that they are receiving high-quality, innovative teaching.
The blueprint proposes three ‘key enablers’ that would support the LLE to be an innovative and transformative system:
- Education hubs: regional education hubs would play an essential role in supporting learners with relevant information, advice and guidance to help them navigate the new opportunities that are open to them. They will also act as a link between local, regional and national skills mapping exercises, employers, educators and learners.
- A national student record system: this will facilitate easier transfer of students between institutions.
- A digitised ‘learning portfolio’ for learners: this will enable learners to keep digital records of the learning they complete, which they can share with employers. This removes the need for learners to store multiple physical certificates for each qualification or credential they complete.
The blueprint draws on the expertise of Alliance Universities, who provide a significant proportion of the UK’s skills training, including training 35% of nursing students in England (28% of all students across England and Wales).
University Alliance Chair and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Brighton, Professor Debra Humphris said:
“The connections that University Alliance institutions maintain across our communities provide an acute local understanding of the nuances of employer and student demand for training and higher education.
We are already partnered with local employers in business and industry, and are well placed to utilise our existing infrastructure to help deliver the Lifelong Loan Entitlement provision to our regions.”
University Alliance CEO, Vanessa Wilson said:
“We believe in the transformational potential of lifelong learning; it remains one of the founding principles of University Alliance. We stand ready to work with government, our universities and students to ensure the success of the LLE proposal.”
Read the University Alliance ‘Lifelong Learning: a blueprint for success’ publication here.
NOTES
- For more information, or to speak to one of our spokespeople, please contact press@unialliance.ac.uk or call 07497566849 .
- University Alliance (UA) is the voice of professional and technical universities. We represent large to mid-sized universities working at the heart of their communities. Alliance Universities work with industry and the professions to deliver the workforce of today and tomorrow through practical, skills-based learning and applied research.
