Mobility
"Higher education has always been an important factor in the social mobility of individuals from communities without the economic resources and social connections of their wealthier neighbours, and it still is."
Kevin Whitston, Head of Widening Participation, HEFCE. "Working for Social Mobility", The Guardian, 16 September 2008.
In the 21st century there is more to mobility than moving from one geographic location to another to study.
There are different types of mobility, such as mobility for an entire programme of study (diploma mobility), for part of a programme (credit mobility) or for voluntary personal reasons. The Diploma Supplement and credit transfer schemes help to facilitate mobility. Social mobility issues feed into the widening participation agenda.
Innovation
'Virtual' student mobility is emerging as a result of learners studying in a more 'place-independent' mode - eg using web, email and internet phones to get access to staff, resources and peers from a wide range of locations. Two projects on virtual mobility partly funded by the European Commission are, the Victorious project (which involved 9 traditional universities and one university network investigating current practice in Europe) and VM-BASE project (Virtual Mobility Before and After Student Exchanges), a project which ended in September 2008 and aimed to improve the quality of student exchanges.
Resources
The Future Size and Shape of the HE Sector in the UK: demographic projections. Universities UK (2008). In a section on key uncertainties and drivers for change the authors touch on the impact on student mobility of future political developments, including government responses to threats from terrorism and global warming.
The Institute of International Education has developed, with partners - including the British Council, an Atlas of Student Mobility. 'Project Atlas' tracks migration trends of those students who opt to go outside of their home countries to study.
Study in Europe website launched by the European Commission in October 2008 promotes 'the attractiveness of European Higher Education to students from other parts of the world'
e-Portfolios: Supporting Application
e-Portfolios: Policy, drivers and trends
Planning and Designing Technology-Rich Learning Spaces: Future Technologies
e-Portfolio development is another factor that has an impact on improving mobility and JISC infoNet have resources on e-Portfolios available.
Geographical mobility
The UK benefits from inward mobility (i.e. students from outside of the UK coming to study in UK) but UK home students are not participating in outward mobility to the same extent, this can be to their disadvantage and has the potential risk of leaving UK students behind their non-UK peers. In 2002-03 the number of UK students taking advantage of opportunities to study abroad fell to only 7,956 compared to 11,988 in 1994-95. (International student mobility report by the Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex, and the Centre for Applied Population Research, University of Dundee, 2004.) This is contrary to the trend in the majority of the rest of Europe.
There are a number of factors that have an effect on the mobility (or lack of mobility) of UK students including:
- lack of a tradition of mobility
- social factors
- language barriers
- lack of institutional opportunity/support
- family or work commitments
The July 2007 Council for Industry and Higher Education (CIHE) Global Horizons for UK students: A guide for universities report by John Fielden, Professor Robin Middlehurst and Steve Woodfield talks about the lack of outward mobility of UK students. It spells out the benefits of studying abroad - familiarity with other languages and cultures, an increased personal ability to live and work in other countries with confidence and enhanced employability and attractiveness to employers. The report laments that this message is "...not getting across to students".
