by Richard Gascoigne, CEO, Solutionpath
Acknowledging that I am no spring chicken, I have been using the ‘domestic’ computer since the early 80’s and therefore at the birth of playing ‘computer games’. This offers me a specific lexicon where progress was defined by a level which was achieved through a combination of skills and knowledge, specifically lots of practice to develop the skills with the experience of doing the same thing continually until mastery where you then clashed with the ‘boss’ at the end as the final gate keeper.
My mates and I talked through our progress and helped each other along the way. A great lesson in life as I ‘Manic Mined’ and ‘Jet Packed’ my way through my preteen and teenage years – much to the disdain of my Dickensian farther. Life? I was bossing it, well games, not school btw.
So, levelling up to me means to play the game, get everyone up to the same level and we’re all happy right?
But that’s about it when it comes to government policy, the idea that through effort and application we can rise to the top is the very antithesis of fair equity. A lofty ambition of jobs, boosting productivity in places of previous decline and limit any degeneration.
So, just to escape the ideology and dogma let’s assume that in the case of the Education sector, this is actually about equity and addressing the opportunity gap, getting an education that allows you to progress socially. This was something that has been around for quite some time, I recall in 2017 the then Education Secretary Justine Greening was proposing ‘levelling up’ in a white paper called “Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential”, this being quite aligned with the current zeitgeist with ‘opportunity areas’ linking funding across schools, employers and the launch of the social mobility action plan which included FE, skills, early years and even attainment gaps.
Clearly this remains in the current thinking, albeit largely expanded to be broader in application that also includes wider industry, transport, health and even crime. Although, specifically what & where remain somewhat opaque, to me at least.
Universities & Opportunity
What I do know is that Education is fundamental to any change agenda, which was made clear in Michelle Donelan shift from “intakes to outcomes” in seeking to make Universities part of the governments macro-economic grand plan and access a key means to provide the pathway to better outcomes and to reboot their access and participation plans. However, to expect Universities to extend beyond this, to make them in some way accountable to raising standards in schools perhaps a step too far?
Especially in light of the proposed minimum GCSE entry level for loans to go to university (as reported in the Guardian) which is seen as a potential entrenchment of inequality as it shows huge regional differences for student outcomes and yet these regional universities inevitably carry the social mobility disproportionately already.
Universities are regional power houses that have huge influences locally and how young adults achieve their potential. They offer the policy makers a powerful means to drive the levelling up agenda and being part of the regional common endeavour, but they also need to understand that students are all individuals and broad stroke policy decisions on elements such as student loan access would stymie the very agenda that they are purporting to support.
Getting in & getting on
There is no doubt that for universities, the renewed focus as part of policy big ideas means challenge, but recognition of the immense power in the social good is surely welcome.
The change on emphasis on progression once in university means students will need support and over the years, we have shown that data has an important part in not only finding those that need help but supporting universities in understanding how they can support targeted interventions without marginalising others.
Raising standards requires uniform and consistent changes, where EVERY student has equity in support and institutions can deliver programmatically.
At Solutionpath we have seen a significant shift from our tooling being used exclusively for individual outreach that aids in early intervention, but also using the data in support of ‘objectively’ analysing student engagement to determine where good/best practice lies – as in the case of these two courses;
Comparing how students are engaging at various points of the academic year, or how they engage on average allows institutions to focus on what makes a course successful.
Or, as in the case below, why different demographic groups engage very differently than others.
Utilising data, and more importantly, objective data provides real-time insights that can be used at varying analysis levels whether, individually as in the case where data could be used to identify what good learning patterns look like at an individual level;
Or, institutionally across schools & departments where macro level metrics allow institutional leaders to set and monitor key performance indicators that lead to change;
Whilst levelling-up is neither a woolly policy agenda, nor a means to progress in a game, the job of driving student social mobility through equitable support is available to institutions for those that can leverage from the data that they already have.
Contact us to find out more today at hello@solutionpath.co.uk or read more about how StREAM is impacting universities.
by Richard Gascoigne, CEO, Solutionpath Acknowledging that I am no spring chicken, I have been using the ‘domestic’ computer since the early 80’s and therefore at the birth of playing ‘computer games’. This offers me a specific lexicon where progress was defined by a level which was achieved through a combination of skills and knowledge, […]
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