The idea of place is back in the spotlight. In the face of unequal economic development between places in the United Kingdom, there is a growing acknowledgement that communities stand to be left behind by a laissez-faire market driven by global economic forces. This, then, has prompted policy thinkers from across the political spectrum to consider a more interventionist role for government in stimulating more even development as a basis for a cohesive society. The vote for Brexit and its impending implementation have served to provide a further impetus to this thinking.   

The devolution agenda, city mayors, the Northern Powerhouse, Midlands Engine Room and, most lately, the industrial strategy, with its “opportunity areas”, are all strands in this shift in economic thinking and action. That thinking reaches through to further and higher education. 

In higher education, a Commission on the Civic Role of Universities has just been launched to consider the contribution that universities make to their localities. Universities obviously make a significant and immensely valuable contribution to the place in which they are located and it is good that the current commission will draw attention to this contribution. 

Colleges driven by local demand

I’m not sure, though, that most universities would see their plans and provision being driven primarily by local need and demand. In this sense, I think that they are more likely to be “of a place” than “for a place” in the same way as the great majority of colleges and many private training providers.

To be “for a place” means being prepared to build curricula according to local labour market intelligence and to welcome the influence of local agencies in shaping provision. Perhaps more problematically, I think that it also means being prepared to enter into collaborative arrangements with other providers and recognising the distinct and diffentiated roles in order to secure the best mix of provision to meet the needs of a place. 

For a generation of college leaders who have been encouraged to either grow or die through competition in a market determined by national targets, moving to a more collaborative mindset in a local context will be a challenge. But if this can’t be achieved, then two possibilities might exist to ensure that duplicative provision that does not add value is removed: either mergers will continue to the point where only a single college will exist in most locations, or local agencies may seek to exert greater and more direct control over colleges. 

Imbalance between places

Neither of these outcomes would, I think, offer the responsiveness and innovation that a modern economy requires in its skills system. Nor would it redress the imbalances between places that the industrial strategy identifies and seeks to redress.

The recently completed area reviews may have provided a basis for looking at provision in a more coordinated way and providing a basis for collaboration that better serves a place’s needs. But as work by colleagues in the Centre for Post-14 Education and Work has demonstrated, the reviews concentrated on financial and institutional imperatives, and very much less on better meeting local need. 

The conversation on how colleges and other providers cement their role in serving and being “for a place” clearly needs to take place. 

A symposium on ’Thinking about Place’ is being held by the Further Education Trust for Leadership at Birmingham Metropolitan’s Matthew Boulton Campus tomorrow, Friday 20 April  

Martin Doel is the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL) professor of leadership in FE and skills at the UCL Institute of Education     

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