Shorten UK undergraduate degrees to just two years, says v-c

Most UK undergraduate degrees should be shortened, according to one university vice-chancellor, who claims that the UK’s current three-year bachelor’s model is “largely a historical artefact”.

Anthony Finkelstein, president of City St George’s, University of London, argued that a major restructuring of the UK’s higher education model could “address many current concerns” in the sector.

Writing in his blog, Finkelstein says that the UK should move to a “two plus two system” of integrated undergraduate and postgraduate education, in which students would study a two-year undergraduate degree, followed by an integrated two-year master’s degree for those who choose to continue.

He notes that current degrees typically consist of 27 weeks of teaching in both years one and two, followed by 25 weeks teaching in the third year, totalling 79 weeks.

But a two-year programme of 40 teaching weeks in both years – a total of 80 weeks – could “cover essentially the same ground, albeit in a more continuous and intentional manner”. Finkelstein adds that edtech could be used to make the teaching day “more efficient”.

“There has been a great deal of discussion about the current challenges in higher education,” which has mainly focused on access, participation, graduate outcomes, funding and the shape of the sector, he says.

“However, relatively little of this debate concerns the more basic matter of what we actually teach and how that teaching is organised. In particular we have, I argue, paid minimal attention to our basic ‘product’, the three-year undergraduate bachelor’s degree. I believe it is a product that merits serious rethinking.”

Such a system could improve access and participation because it would lower both the time and financial barriers associated with undergraduate degrees, he argues, and would see students out of the workforce for a shorter period. He adds it “gives us an opportunity to rethink pedagogy and delivery, and to re-orient teaching around more authentic, applied and experiential approaches to learning”.

The UK model is “already something of an international outlier”, he argues, noting that in the US, degrees are typically four years long, while across Europe degrees are typically three years, followed by a two year master’s. In Scotland, degrees typically last four years.

“Against this backdrop a two-year first degree followed by a two-year Master’s would not be particularly radical. It would simply be another way of organising the same volume of higher learning.”

However, the UK’s higher education sector is “highly conservative”, Finkelstein says, and “structural change in universities occurs only slowly, and usually reluctantly”. In particular, even if the bulk of institutions and students were in favour of such reforms, “the narrow stratum of so-called ‘prestigious universities’, who have little motivation to see the system change, will likely deploy their reputational capital to stand apart from the reform and, by doing so, block it”. 

Finkelstein concludes: “The present model is not the product of timeless academic wisdom. It is largely an historical artefact, a structure that emerged under very different economic, social and institutional conditions. If the pressures currently bearing down on Higher Education teach us anything, it is that we should occasionally revisit our most basic assumptions.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com