One of the things that the UCL Life Learning team is trying to unravel is the complex issue of proof of learning.  Do Life Learners want credits, or is a simple UCL Certificate of Attendance enough?  Would they like their course accredited by a relevant institute?  Do they want all three??? And what about digital badging?

What seems increasingly obvious is that there is no one-size fits all approach here, with different groups of learners wanting different things.  The problem is complex as the “groups” are not necessarily distinguished by a single factor (e.g. profession), but also by their motivation for the learning, whether this is individual or driven by their employer.

The modular nature of any Masters programme makes the “unbundled” approach very attractive, where individual blocks of learning can be offered out as CPD to external learners and this can (and does) work very well in some cases.  Another option here is to split out the assessment costs, so that those who are not interested in gaining credits, can simply attend the learning at a slightly reduced cost.

Going forward, this may be the model that allows the flexibility required, particularly by large numbers of “mature” students, who simply cannot devote the time or financial resource to larger and more formal learning frameworks.  A recent article in the Times Higher entitled “Mature students: lifelong learning on life support?”, states that the number of mature students has declined by 37% between 2009 and 2013 and posits that tuition fees, global recession and real-term loss of earnings may be to blame.

What is interesting is that Universities offering more professional qualifications (often the post 92’s) do not seem to have suffered such a decline in numbers.  The statistics are interesting but probably only tell part of the whole story.  As we go forward with the UCL Life Learning strategy, we hope to gain more insight into what learners from different backgrounds and sectors really want and to be in a strong position to advise course developers on this.

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