Towards the formulation of a bid to HEFCE’s Catalyst Fund
to support HE languages
Following the Collaborative Provision in Languages event of 11 February 2013 (organised by UCML, with support from HEA, and the British Academy), UCML has mooted with the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) a bid to its Catalyst Fund concerning a new collaborative languages curriculum. UCML has led further development of the proposal through a series of meetings involving member departments and associations wishing to explore collaborative provision to enhance recruitment. The planned Catalyst bid is targeted at ensuring the supply of high-quality specialist and non-specialist language programmes at English universities, and at widening participation in university language courses. The current version has four strands:
A. A national network offering practical language skills, relevant to general and specific purposes including business contexts, in a wide and expanded range of languages and at many levels to students at English HEIs, combining face-to-face teaching with online and mobile learning and Open Educational Resources.
B. A new national scheme of certification/kitemarking of language learning for students, linked to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
C. New support for outward mobility, both physical and virtual, involving a new framework for online intercultural exchange with students in target language countries.
D. A small over-arching hub with legal entity status to provide more secure, cross-institutional support for those departments, language centres and individual teachers providing language learning.
The following draft emerged from a series of three meetings to consider the need for a new collaborative curriculum in languages, held on 17-19 June 2013. The meetings, supported by the HEA, were attended by linguists from several Universities (Aston, Bristol, Cambridge, Coventry, Hertfordshire, Leeds, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan, Northumbria, Nottingham Trent, The Open University, Salford, Southampton, Warwick) and the UK HE International Unit. Subject associations, employer organisations and other bodies were also consulted and invited. The meetings were chaired by Jim Coleman, Chair of UCML.
- Context – curriculum challenges
1.1. There is evidence of a mismatch between supply and demand of languages skills for business, the professions, the economy (Languages: the State of the Nation, annual reports/surveys by CBI and British Chambers of Commerce).
1.2. Decline in HE degree provision has hit the more applied/vocational degrees more than those degrees focussing on traditional literary/historical/cultural studies. Concentration of available student numbers is increasingly in universities which do not currently offer applied, vocational language pathways which would be attractive to students and employers.
1.3. Decline in HE provision is not due to a lack of quality of the applied language pathways but due to a ‘squeeze’ of available students in a climate of declining language learning in schools, leading to sometimes unsustainable numbers at individual HEIs.
1.4. Languages represent a complex challenge in HE: the range of languages which need to be offered, the range of levels in each language, the range of types of study related to these languages and their cultures. No one university can satisfy all such needs, but the business case for current delivery models requires a critical mass which is often not achievable locally. This reduces provision in certain languages/levels/pathways across all universities, if these attract relatively small numbers in each.
1.5. A gap which needs to be plugged might be for provision in language Y where an HEI can offer a pathway in language X but not in combination with language Y, due to lack of critical mass in the latter; or where language Y can be offered at lower levels but not at the higher levels needed by small numbers of students.
1.6. Employer / strategic demand is for an increasing number of important world and regional languages. Individual institutions are not able to provide courses or pathways in the full range of such languages due to current delivery models, staffing costs and availability, and small numbers of learners interested in each language in any one institution.
- Context – competition and collaboration
2.1. Competition tends to focus on increasing market share, market position, protecting brands and resources.
2.2. There is ample evidence of collaboration in HE, including between language departments, to support and/or grow markets and to address market failures. The context outlined above could be defined as a market failure.
2.3. The increased availability and flexibility of virtual learning technologies extends the opportunities for collaboration.
2.4. There is broad agreement that collaboration is needed to:
2.4.1. secure a range of options for students;
2.4.2. ensure that HEIs have the ability to offer language pathways within their portfolios, even where they do not have the critical mass of students to do so on their own.
2.4.3. promote a culture of ‘entitlement’ to language learning for all students;
2.4.4. promote transparent and consistent certification of language skills to enhance recognition and employability;
2.4.5. through all the above, generate a culture of recognition of the value of language studies which permeates both HE and statutory sector educational cultures alongside and not in competition with agendas for the promotion of other subjects/disciplines (e.g. STEM).
- Proposal – a hub offering a suite of courses
3.1. Establishment of a hub: a ‘legal’ entity which would have the power to develop course modules, to hire teaching staff, to coordinate the delivery/sharing of learning resources
3.2. Individual universities participating in the project would invite their students to ‘opt’ in to course modules run by the hub; participating universities would recognise and validate such courses as contributing to the student’s overall credit load.
3.3. The ‘hub’ would therefore have no award-giving rights, but arrangements for examination of modules would be agreed between participating universities and the ‘hub’ organisation.
3.4. Individual universities would provide additional local tutorial support or rely on tutoring at a distance by a teacher engaged by the hub, as relevant to the type of provision offered.
3.5. Courses would be made available to both undergraduates and postgraduate students, subject to recognition by participating universities. Some could be taken ‘extra-curricular’ but be recognised within transcripts / the Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR).
3.6. Courses offered would include
3.6.1. a range of differently credit-rated modules in ‘lesser taught’ languages, which may be non-viable for universities’ institution-wide language programmes (e.g. Korean);
3.6.2. tuition in more commonly taught languages, to include more advanced levels, which not all universities are able to provide (e.g. Chinese or Italian);
3.6.3. applied/vocational language studies to provide pathways (e.g. minor degree pathways) and options for universities unable to offer such provision locally.
3.7. All provision would make maximum use of collaborative learning technologies including Open Educational Resources and multimodal communications technologies.
3.8. The ‘hub’ would provide teachers with the necessary training in online delivery
3.9. The underlying premises for the proposal are:
3.9.1. flexibility & diversity in delivery models;
3.9.2. diversity of offering;
3.9.3. student-centredness;
3.9.4. value-added (for students/HEIs);
3.9.5. enhanced employability and transparency of employability (incl. intercultural) skills.
3.10.The hub would implement the proposed scheme to benchmark/kitemark language courses across British HE for greater transparency of reporting; all courses proposed for delivery via the hub would carry the kitemark.
- Certification kitemark
4.1.Surveys of providers, of students and of employers indicate the need for consistent, clear, comprehensive statements of students’ language skills and levels within a single labelling scheme.
4.2.Despite wide international adoption of the CEFR, the UK has no recognised national scheme.
4.3.The lack of a national scheme providing a concise, detailed and transparent description of students’ and graduates’ language skills and levels is damaging to recruitment and to external recognition.
4.4.In the UK HE context, it would be unnecessary and inappropriate to adopt a model requiring external inspection, validation or accreditation such as those required by QAA, BALEAP, ASSET or the widely used German UNIcert; universities themselves continue their own assessments.
4.5.Such a scheme should therefore be voluntary, with HEIs opting in if and when they chose
4.6.The scheme would apply to both non-specialist and specialist linguists at all levels, providing a benchmark or kitemark for IWLPs, individual courses and degrees.
4.7.The scheme might draw principally on the languages ladder. (http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/76385-the-languages-ladder-can-do-statements.pdf) but could also benefit from other insights: ASSET languages http://www.assetlanguages.org.uk/, European Language Portfolio http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Portfolio_en.asp, UK Occupational Language Standards http://www.cilt.org.uk/home/standards_and_qualifications/uk_occupational_standards/languages.aspx, UNIcert http://www.unicert-online.org/en/unicert%C2%AE-whats-it-all-about, and work within CERCLES.
4.8.The scheme will have a name and logo which are meaningful and acceptable to all parties.
4.9.Initially developed with HEFCE support in England, the scheme would be available across the four nations of the UK.
- Developing the proficiency kitemark scheme
5.1. Identification of lead and partner HEIs for this strand of the Catalyst bid.
5.2. Initial consultation and ongoing involvement of IWLPs, Language Centres, academic departments and employers.
5.3. Possible involvement of commercial partners/sponsors.
5.4. Data gathering on existing delivery and certification via annual AULC-UCML survey; additional research into existing schemes.
5.5. Initial pilot, probably with German, involving professional and business partners.
5.6. Staff training, including examiners and external examiners, in how to use the scheme.
5.7. Marketing, promotion, publicity and website.
- Outward mobility
6.1. Despite recent growth in outward student mobility from UK HEIs, fewer UK students go abroad than come to study in the UK.
6.2. UK HE International Unit has support from BIS, HEFCE, UUK to increase proportion of UK students with international experience, through promoting the benefits, collecting more precise data, supporting HEIs and providing a single information point and portal.
6.3. Curriculum cannot / need not address Year Abroad funding/accreditation/assessment, but should encourage and facilitate outward mobility for students of all disciplines, complementing the activities of Routes Into Languages 2013-16.
6.4. Non-specialist linguists require both confidence-building and language preparation
6.5. Online communication (INTENT project, UNIcollaboration) can provide links with foreign HEIs and tasks/activities which motivate and prepare for mobility, or which provide virtual mobility / international experience (including discipline-specific, e.g. mechanical engineering).
6.6. Modules offered via the ‘hub’ could include TESOL, intercultural communication, strategy training, employability guidance (e.g. REALIE project).
- Next steps – consultation towards a bid
7.1. UCML cannot bid for funding from HEFCE – this has to be done by an English HEI.
7.2. UCML will consult on this document through its plenary meeting on 5 July 2013, and invite expressions of interest to join a bid-writing consortium of interested parties/universities.
7.3. The bid-writing consortium would draft a bid, taking advice from UCML/the sector as a whole through consultations which UCML can help to facilitate.
7.4. UCML can help to facilitate advice from HEFCE, including on the constitution and governance of the proposed hub (via the HEFCE/KPMG consultation on joint ventures in HE).
7.5. There may be several strands to any bid, e.g. including the kitemark scheme and strands linked to outward mobility: a ‘lead’ institution could identify partner institutions to lead on particular strands.
7.6. A consortium approach, learning from the models in Routes into Languages, might ensure buy-in, and ultimately guarantee sustainability.
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