After the excitement of Thursday's consultation meeting in London, Hefce will be sifting through all those tweets, emails, comments, questions, videos, and post-it notes – and waiting for the deadline (on Friday) of its formal consultation period about its proposals. I've been involved in a couple of formal commentaries; one from ELSA; the other from the South West Learning for Sustainability Coalition.
Here are a few highlights in relation to learning from the Coalition's response ...
In Paras.48 to 62, learning only gets one mention (the Green Gown Awards 2012 box on p. 19). In this sense, HEFCE seems behind the times, and its action point to support the goal to embed sustainability in its programmes and activities, and engage with the Committee of University Chairs to promote sustainable development as a central principle in governance, would be more convincing were learning at least to be mentioned. We understand HEFCE’s reluctance to mention curriculum matters; however, stressing that learning, viewed both broadly and in an integrated way, is crucial, is important to say.
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Para.63 concerns HEFCE’s own “commitment”. In many ways this is exemplary, and sector-leading, and it is a great pity that other organisations do not do even half as much. The HEFCE policy objectives and targets relate to: business ethics, managing environmental impacts, procurement, our people, the community, and working with the sector, and there is an action point to continue to improve its own CSR performance and report publicly on progress each year, which is commendable. It is unclear whether this commitment extends to HEFCE (and its “people”) learning their way into sustainability. Probably not, which is a pity, as that really would be sector-leading, and would underline the importance of organisational learning.
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We hope that HEFCE will get over its hang-ups about not talking about learning, even if all it says is that learning, by everybody, is crucial, as sustainable development depends on learning. Actually, we’d like HEFCE to say that sustainable development is learning and that higher education is particularly good at it.
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The following key phrase in the 2009 document which is not echoed or reworded in the current consultative document: “It remains our view that the greatest contribution that universities and colleges can make to sustainable development is through the values, skills and knowledge that students learn and put into practice.” (p19.) As the whole point of sustainable development in HE is to affect the student experience and their future lives, this seems an important omission, not least as the previous statement provided an important mandate which is now missing. The current document, by contrast, doesn’t mention values at all.
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As for omissions, institutional leaders and leadership might well be added, if only to make the point that leaders and what they do are of paramount importance. In fact, Leadership deserves its own subsection in the report, and we suggest putting Paras.50 & 51 (which currently sit awkwardly under the rest of their section) into a new ‘Leadership’ subsection, adding a line about its importance. Recognition of the importance of the circular economy (viz. the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and their work with several HEIs) would be welcome here. Further, a theme of community and social embeddedness would help make the point that universities are not islands of excellence that can exist without networks and inter-relationships with other institutions, locally, nationally, and globally.
But, as I noted on Friday, Hefce is always going to be limited in what it, itself, can do. It's in the catalysing, stimulating, exemplifying, encouraging business, but not the proselytising or instructing one, unlike some of its critics. What is clear however, is that Hefce needs our help so that it can help us. It also needs a fair wind from government, especially in the next funding letter from BIS – which, ominously, is overdue ...
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