The development of tertiary education systems: comparing England, Scotland and Wales

Tertiary education has been transformed from merely a statistical category first to a strategic concept and then, in a few places, a blueprint for structural reform. There is an increasing movement to treat all forms of tertiary education – universities and the rest of higher education, further and technical education, adult community learning and job-related training as constituting a single post-compulsory sector. However, concrete measures to bring about a more integrated and coordinated system have been patchy in their effects. The United Kingdom offers an illuminating case study. Because responsibility for education has been devolved to the UK’s constituent nations, significant policy divergence has taken place since 2000, including progress (or lack of progress) towards a more integrated and better coordinated tertiary education system. The largest, England, has made the most limited progress with movement towards a more holistic tertiary education system being largely confined to high-level policy rhetoric. Wales has made the greatest progress with its establishment of a Council for Tertiary Education and Research (Medr – ‘skill’ in Welsh). Scotland occupies an intermediate position. The conclusions that can be drawn from this UK case study are that scale and complexity, the foundational intentions of structural reforms and degrees of marketisation are key factors encouraging or inhibiting tertiary reorganisation.