Synonyms

Further education; Higher education; Post-compulsory education; Tertiary education

Definition

The phase of education proceeding compulsory education, including higher education. Typically there is no upper limit to the age at which an individual can participate in tertiary education. It is sometimes referred to as lifelong learning given the lack of upper age limit. Tertiary education often bridges the skills and knowledge gap between the general education that an individual receives at school and work.

Introduction to Tertiary Education

A broad range of factors influences tertiary education globally. These include but are not limited to the labor markets they serve, the degree of state-led regulation of specific occupations, and historical structures of economics and industries. Yet despite these variances, the structure of tertiary education is broadly similar. Tertiary education also acts a bridge between the generalist education provided by compulsory schooling and the education, often technical training, that is needed by potential employers. In addition to improving an individuals’ quality of life, access to tertiary-level education can help equip young people with the tools required to develop innovative solutions to local and global issues.

It is well documented (Kennedy 1997; Dugdale and Clark 2008; Fehring and Herring 2013) that tertiary education brings about increased quality of life, access to employment, and improved social mobility. Yet governments and industries must recognized that tertiary education is not a tap that politicians can turn on and off to meet local economic priorities. Educational organizations and businesses need to work collaboratively to identify and plan for the skill needs in a timely manner to ensure that tertiary education providers have sufficient time to train individuals to meet these economic needs. In addition, policy-makers cannot view tertiary education as a tool to correct deficits in aspects of compulsory education. Likewise, tertiary education cannot be perceived by politicians and policy-makers, as they so often do, as second to compulsory education (Augar 2019).

This opening section focuses on the further education of wealthy Angola countries before focusing on tertiary education in the UK. Most countries view tertiary education in two phases. Further education, which offers sub-degree-level qualifications and higher education providing qualifications at bachelor’s degree level and above. The World Bank states that tertiary education includes colleges, trade schools, and universities (The World Bank 2017), whereas UNESCO (2018) states that tertiary education focuses on learning endeavors in specialized fields, including academic and higher vocational education.

Australia’s tertiary education system like so many is divided into technical and further education institutions and higher education. A vast majority of students (circa 85%) study part time through mainly publically funded providers, although there are a small number of privately owned organizations that receive state funding. Most students study courses related to their employment, rather than for personal development. In recent years Australia has sought to grow its work-based learning curriculum through the development of apprenticeships (a combination of technical training and employment) in order to ensure that there are sufficient individuals with the skills necessary to meet the economic needs of the country.

Unlike Australia, Canada does not have a uniformed approach to further and higher education. Indeed, there is no state-level policy for either compulsory or post-compulsory education. Instead, the ten provinces of Canada are responsible for determining their own education policy. Yet all provinces operate a similar model of community college and universities. However, the lack of consistency in provinces does present challenges. In New Brunswick and Ontario, for example, there are no progression arrangements in place between the community colleges offering vocational and technical qualification and the universities, whereas, in British Columbia and Quebec, progression arrangements are in place to allow students to progress from community colleges onto higher education. Unlike in British Columbia, in Quebec students cannot progress from school directly to university without having first completed 2 years at a community college.

Unlike Australia with its centralized approach to tertiary education, the American approach is highly decentralized. Each of the 50 states is able to legislate its own education policy. However, the most distinctive part of the tertiary system of America is the 2-year community college. These institutions, unlike their 4-year equivalents, offer courses up to associate degree level. These are typically equivalent to the 1st year of a degree in the UK or the 2nd year of a degree in Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands. After graduating from community college, students will often progress to a 4-year degree course at university.

In Europe, Germany has adopted a system of tertiary education that enables individuals to gain high-level technical skills through the completion of a 2- to 3-year apprenticeship. These apprenticeships combine classroom-based theory learning and the application of knowledge through practical work-based learning. Apprenticeships are taught by specialized vocational education training (VET) institutions and are available as a highly sought after alternative to university. Over half of the working population in Germany are educated through the VET program, and annually over 500,000 individuals commence training in order to gain technical training.

This opening section of the chapter provided a brief overview of the structure of further and tertiary education in a number of significant economies around the world. Each individual approach is different to reflect the unique circumstances of the host country, yet there are aspects that are familiar to each system. The next section of the chapter explores some of the issues and challenges facing further education, contextualized through the UK’s approach.

Further and Tertiary Education and Its Position in the Topology of Education

In many countries, tertiary education, and in particular further education (FE), has an awkward place in the education system. Unlike schools which are defined by law and universities which are protected by state legislation, the same clarity of definition is not afforded to the tertiary sector.

Further education as part of the education landscape is broad and encompasses everything from nonschool-based education for young people aged 14 and over through adult learning as well as some elements of higher education. As a result, there remains considerable variation in the accepted understanding of further education, both in terms of its place in the topology of education and its purpose.

Before looking at the detail of the FE sector, and what it offers, it is worthwhile considering how one might define the further education. In many countries, such as Australia, the USA, and Canada, further education colleges are referred to as community colleges. In the UK, FE is an umbrella term that has a wide and disparate range of organizations operating under this generic term. Further education is also referred to as post-compulsory education, due to it being a nonmandatory part of an individual’s education. Globally there appears to be inconsistency in the accepted understanding of further education. In particular, the UK uses the term in the broadest sense, whereas other countries have a more defined understanding of the role of community colleges and its place in the educational landscape. Therefore, it is worthwhile establishing what is meant by post-compulsory education and where further education fits into this broader category.

Jameson (2006) defines post-compulsory education as the field of education that is sometimes referred to as “lifelong learning” and is concerned with the non-compulsory phase of education; the statutory age range is from 16, with no upper limit. Jameson and Hillier (2003) sum up post-compulsory education as:

…educational provision for post-compulsory age learners at sub-degree level in a range of post-16, adult and extra-mural education and training institutions…

There is, however, a fuzziness surrounding post-compulsory education in that while higher education is post-compulsory, it is separated out to form a category of its own. Globally higher education, which forms part of the tertiary education system, is experiencing a period of sustained growth. Calderon (2018) predicts that globally higher education enrolments will reach nearly 600 million by 2040, up from 216 million in 2016. Much of this growth has been attributed to global economic growth in particular exports from developing countries and increasing population trends in Africa.

In 2016 the global higher education market was worth $1.9 trillion, the third largest “industry” after transportation and information technology but ahead of the global health market. There higher education market is considerably more regulated than the further education sector. Universities, while they can be either publically funded or private “fee-paying,” they are often governed by state legislation in order to limit organizations establishing pseudo-universities.

Jameson and Hillier (2003) and Jameson (2006) all provide their own meaning for what tertiary education is. However, tertiary education must be about providing meaningful and appropriate education for those learners who are beyond the compulsory phase of education. It would be possible to debate what meaningful and appropriate mean, and indeed Wolf (2011) does so, but often people attend tertiary education colleges to learn skills so that they can gain employment. This means that institutions need to have central to their mission the ideology that the curriculum they offer does lead to meaningful employment.

Policy Context

It is unsurprising that state governments have an interest in education, as it is one of main ways that governments can intervene in family life and the life of individuals. While education does not rely on the state, because it can happen informally at home, between friends, or indeed in independent schools, the state does rely on education. Ward and Eden (2009) suggest that governments will define themselves and sustain their cultural identity, promoting their beliefs, ideas, and knowledge from generation to generation through the state control of education, therefore suggesting that education has become a political tool that transcends different political parties.

One of the issues that tertiary education has faced is the rise, in particular in western nations of neoliberal political ideologies a theme of the Thatcher (UK) and Reagan (USA) government (Jenkins 2007). The idea being that the government(s) wanted to stimulate the market in which tertiary institutions operated. By freeing them of local control, politicians believed that colleges would be able to compete for students alongside schools, other institution, and an emerging number of private training providers. Ward and Eden (2009) call this form of competition, which is internal to the state, the “internal market,” whereas Ball (2008) describes this as “endogenous competition.” Colleges had entered the consumer era whereby they were selling education as a commodity and only those colleges whose curriculum matched the needs of their consumers would survive. Observers of the Thatcher government had already seen public services privatized, such as the prison services, elements of the health service, and the rail infrastructure, so it should have been no surprise that post-compulsory education would go this way.

While there was a move to create a free market for tertiary education which freed colleges from local (district) control, at the same time, the governments often looked to centralize its control and power over education through the introduction of increased regulation and legislation. Fukuyama (1992, p. 124) describes this as market-oriented authoritarianism where there is a high degree of “discipline” with just enough freedom to encourage innovation. The theory was that by bringing education into a free market system, a number of things would happen. Firstly, it was hoped that the education system would bring about efficiencies in the way it operated and in turn ensuring value for money for taxpayers. Secondly, just as competition in the manufacturing sector often drives down prices and pushes up quality, the quality in education would be “driven up” in the same way. Finally, Bash and Coulby (1991) argue that the idea of empowering colleges was less about freedom as autonomous organizations and more about reducing the power of local authorities, particularly the Inner London Education Authority. Based on this idea, it is easier to understand why when Labour came to power in 1997 they did not abolish the ideas of centralized control. Fukuyama’s (1992) idea of market-oriented authoritarianism was simply a way of achieving the best from the education system.

Fukuyama (1992, p. 123) stated that “free market capitalism seemed to be the only game in town.” Ward and Eden (2009) remind us that the introduction of greater legislation and regulation in a quest to drive up quality and standards. Many of these pieces of legislation were implemented by an increasing number of nongovernment agencies; this move allowed for the outsourcing of key education targets while keeping an element of control over the delivery on such targets. Bobbitt (2002) suggests that this exonerates the government if targets are not met, effectively reducing their [government’s] responsibility.

Despite all the changes in the tertiary education system, what has been a consistent theme through successive governments is the notion that the education system needs to produce individuals, which enable their own economies to remain competitive. Governments throughout the world saw further education as a principal mechanism by which this could be achieved. As a result of changes in global economies, national initiatives such as apprenticeships were developed as the primary method of up-skilling the workforce. However, Wolf (2004) notes that while there is a link between qualifications and economic productivity, it is not a linear assumption and that the social benefits of a higher-skilled workforce should not be overlooked.

What this section of the entry has done is to provide an overview of the complexity of the policy context that tertiary education operates in. As the bridge between school and employment and/or higher education, further education is uniquely positioned to respond to the economic needs of the country. Yet at the same time, it is also at the mercy of government in terms of respond to their every changing policy needs. This means that the policy landscape for further education remains fluid in nature of changing in practice.

Homogenous Curricular

Further and higher education institutions all claim to be unique, in terms of the curriculum they offer and the demographics of their learners, for example, serving learners who did not achieve well at school or who want to change career or indeed those who are furthest way from gaining sustained employment, due to a lack of skills or additional barriers to work.

However, universities and colleges cannot all be unique in terms of the communities that they serve and the curricular they offer. Indeed if one were to look at the range of courses offered a vast majority of offered, particularly at the lower levels of the curriculum, they would be identical (Fig. 1).

Tertiary Education, Fig. 1
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Curriculum map of colleges

Full size image

Figure 1 illustrates the way in which most colleges offer the same curriculum at the lower-level qualifications. The uniqueness that institutions often refer to can only realistically be achieved through courses at the higher level. Many students will attend their local college, not because of its unique curriculum offer, but its proximity to where they live. There will come a point when the student will need to move, possibly to another institution in order to pursue their chosen course at the higher levels. It is at this point where there are fewer institutions offering courses, usually vocational in nature. This is where a college or university curriculum becomes unique, and it is worth pointing out that not all colleges will have this unique element to it. Many colleges, which offer primarily academic programs such as mathematics or history, leading to university entry, are not unique in the context of their curriculum offer.

One of the challenges that college face, and as a result of the competition that the government introduced, is balancing the financial viability of the organization with meeting the needs of the local economy. Unlike schools which recruit from a pre-defined geographical area, the tertiary education sector does not. Organizations have to market their courses in order to attract students and as such have to ensure that courses offered recruit sufficient number of students to ensure their financial viability. At the same time, colleges’ ability to respond to the needs of the local economy and population changes is compounded by the skills and abilities of their teachers. The ability to introduce new courses can require changes to staffing and resources which is often slow and costly. This makes many organizations within the further education sector appear slow and unresponsive to the needs of industry.

This perceived slowness is where smaller private training providers have the competitive advantage over large colleges. These are privately owned companies who have gained government funding to offer education and training, normally apprenticeships. Typically, these organizations have significantly fewer staff and operate from smaller premises specializing in a specific occupational sector, such as construction or healthcare. As private companies, they are often more agile and proactive in seeking new business opportunities. However, with this agility comes a level of risk in part due to the lack of systems and processes in place to assure the quality of the education offered (Ofsted 2018).

Regardless of whether institutions operating within the tertiary education sector are agile or not in their ability to respond to the needs of the local economy, they still operate within a quasi-state-controlled system. This state-level control has the ability to limit and influence the curriculum offered. This reinforces that notion of a homogenous curriculum for many institutions.

Conclusion

This entry has explored what is meant by tertiary education and revealed a sector that is as complex as it is diverse. There is a fuzziness at its boundaries overlapping with the schools, where FE provides education for those individuals of compulsory school age. Likewise, there is also an overlap with higher education whereby colleges provide degree-level courses. At the same time, college is at the behest of central government through the control and regulation that the state has over institutions.

Regardless of the complexity of the tertiary education system, it continues to be an important part of the education landscape despite many successive governments not fully understanding the importance of the sector (Martin 2016). However, all too often, government sees tertiary education, and in particular further education, as being able to address the needs of the national economy through education and training. In part, this is true, but FE is reliant on other elements of the education system such as schools and higher education and cannot be seen as a panacea for fixing the economy of the state.

Cross-References