Publisher's Synopsis
Higher education in Britain is undergoing a rapid transformation from 'elite' to 'mass' forms. for some, including Dearing, the new higher education will support economic growth and widen academic and cultural opportunities. Other, more sceptical observers see only a lowering of standards, increased managerial and state control over teaching and research, and an increasing stratification of institutions, all of them seriously damaging to HE. In this important new volume more than thirty contributors drawn from all sectors of UK higher education as well as from abroad examine the issues and dilemmas facing a Post-Dearing HE. The volume deals with many of the issues that Dearing ignored and searches for the basis of a new compact between HE staff and the managers of the 'new HE' and between the 'new HE' and its constituencies - students, the state and the economy, and wider civil society.