| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Recent policy changes initiated by the British Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government represent a paradigm shift in the organization of higher education. In 1963, the Robbins Report on the long-term development of higher education in Britain and the principles which should inform it inaugurated mass higher education and a public university system in the UK similar to that of the California Master Plan at about the same time. The architect of the latter, Clark Kerr, called the modern university a "multi-versity" for its multiple functions and roles. The announced changes to higher education in the UK derive from a radical, neo-liberal approach that now seeks to transform the multiversity into a market-based monoculture. As with all monocultures, the problem is not only the value of what is lost, but also the effective reproduction of what remains. The policies, I shall suggest, are self-defeating, but they are also deeply damaging to the university's democratic mission.
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