Exploring the Unitary Model
Exploring the Unitary Model
A Diversity of Definitions
Much of the political intervention in English higher education has attempted to reshape its overall structure. This chapter explores the shift from the university model to a system of higher education, thanks to the emergence of the binary model. Why, with the passage of the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act, was the binary model subsequently abandoned? Would a unitary model mean the creation of a system in which universities increasingly shared common purposes and came to possess similar identities? The chapter notes the the push for a diversified model of higher education albeit with little clarity as to what this would mean for the identity of individual institutions or the overall coherence of the system. It argues that the English model of higher education has become more internally differentiated and stratified over time, countering the earlier developments of the initial post-binary years in which developments were suggestive of a two-way academic drift.
Keywords: binary model, academic drift, diversification, hierarchy, status, planning, institutional identity
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