University education of the future

Individual and online-supported - this is how Prof. Dr Anke Hanft, Scientific Director of the Centre for Lifelong Learning (C3L) at the University of Oldenburg, sees the future of academic teaching and further education. In this interview, she explains why the changing world of work also affects universities. QUESTION: This year's Science Year organised by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) focuses on the working world of the future. What role will academic education and further education play in changing our future working lives? HANFT: Jobs cannot be thought of in isolation from new technologies and the world of work is changing rapidly. We therefore need to combine work with further qualifications much more consistently. We can no longer rely on learning processes being completed after training or studies. In an ageing society in particular, we need to maintain lifelong learning. Companies are already doing this; they have intensively expanded their personnel development programmes in recent decades. But there is also growing pressure on universities to change their study models, which have so far focussed exclusively on younger learners. QUESTION: How important is further education at German universities? HANFT: A few years ago, we carried out a large international comparative study on further education at universities for the BMBF. It showed that The prevailing understanding at German universities of postgraduate further education is only a small part of the permeability that exists between academic appointments and higher education, particularly in the USA but also in Scandinavia. In Germany, we have two well-developed pillars - higher education and academic appointments. In an increasingly demanding world of work, it is important to link these pillars more closely. Countries such as the USA, which do not have a good academic appointment system like Germany's, are showing us how to organise qualifications for practical areas much more strongly from within universities. This makes it possible to tackle questions of science transfer in a more system-integrated way and to anchor them in the universities. Further education is an important driver of transfer. Researchers gain a link to practice QUESTION: This means that universities and the world of work should be more closely linked... HANFT: Exactly. Universities must not make the mistake of focussing exclusively on research and science while neglecting teaching and science transfer. It is also the task of further education to dovetail the two more closely. One of the ways we try to achieve this is by organising our learning processes, for example by having students work on projects from their academic appointments in a science-led way. This also gives our researchers a completely different connection to practice. We also co-operate closely with the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, which attaches great importance to the transfer of knowledge. We are launching our first joint certificate programme this summer: In the Diploma of Advanced Studies (DAS) in Research and Transfer Management, we want to teach scientists how they can improve the transfer of their research results. QUESTION: Who will be studying at universities in the future? HANFT: With more than 50 per cent of an age group having completed their A-levels, our students are becoming increasingly heterogeneous. Students are increasingly deciding to study at a later stage. In addition, the proportion of students who gain academic appointments after a Bachelor's degree and only take up a Master's programme a few years later is growing. For example, there are many educators on our education degree programmes who don't study until they are 30 or 40. They bring different skills to the table than 18-year-olds. However, when planning our courses, we have so far assumed that everyone with the Abitur has the same entry requirements. However, this does not always guarantee a successful degree programme. Many universities are therefore stepping up their efforts to homogenise heterogeneous students by trying to compensate for deficits in their school education. Quite apart from the fact that such measures are highly controversial: We also wanted to focus on the fact that students can also have more competences than required at the start of their studies. We are therefore calling for university structures to be tailored more closely to the growing individuality of students. What skills do students arrive with? What do they lack in order to successfully complete a degree programme? Where do they bring more to the table than normal students? What credits can we give them? Compared to other universities, the University of Oldenburg has already achieved a lot here. Anchoring the individualisation of learning more firmly QUESTION: What does this mean in concrete terms for teaching? HANFT: The credit point system makes it possible to design online-supported learning units in such a way that participants can put together their modules in a targeted manner and thus obtain exactly the qualification they need. The Bologna Process has also become a promoter of lifelong learning. For example, we work with very small learning units, learning nuggets, which are integrated into modules and enable various forms of deeper and further learning. We need to anchor this individualisation of learning, on individual learning paths, much more institutionally at universities - and link it to standards and quality assurance. The University of Oldenburg has already come a long way in this respect: for example, our credit transfer procedures for competences acquired outside the university are considered exemplary. Many universities benefit from our research results and experience. We coordinate the accompanying research for the Quality Pact for Teaching - a BMBF programme in which more than 150 universities receive funding. And we are involved in the scientific monitoring of the federal-state competition "Advancement through Education: Open Universities", which supports around 100 universities. QUESTION: So the much-cited digitalisation is also an important topic here... HANFT: Yes, we were quick to focus on online-based forms of learning. At <link c3l/>C3L</link>, we have our own department that deals solely with the pedagogical and didactic integration of learning technologies. We are regarded as a leader in the field of further education. However, we need to link our higher education even more closely with online-supported forms of learning - and increasingly incorporate this into undergraduate programmes. To put it bluntly: We don't really need lectures any more. I can learn on the basis of study materials and receive mentoring and feedback. I don't have to do that in large lecture theatres. Face-to-face events can be better utilised for interactive forms of learning. "We have to face up to the changed reality" QUESTION: At her inauguration, Federal Education Minister Anja Karlizcek said that she wanted to make further education available to as many people as possible. Would you agree with that? HANFT: What is important to me in this discussion is that, with a high school graduation rate of over 50 per cent of an age cohort, we have to recognise that students enter our system with very different prerequisites and interests, so we have to ask ourselves fundamentally: How do we want to understand university education in the future? Do we want an education for a small elite who see their academic appointments in research? If so, universities of applied sciences should be further expanded and their profile should be more clearly linked to academic appointments. Both universities and universities of applied sciences must face up to the changed reality and in any case devote greater attention to science transfer. Further education is an important lever here. These are key issues in higher education and education policy that we need to focus on. Interview: Constanze Böttcher