Leadership Foundation

Credit Risk? Reviving credit accumulation and transfer in UK higher education

Professor Sir David Watson
Green Templeton College, University of Oxford
Stimulus Paper, September 2013

Our research forms part of the Leadership Foundation membership benefit. Hard copies of this Stimulus Paper have been distributed to all member institutions and the PDF is available for members to download by clicking the image below.

 "A cat’s entitled to expect these evidences of respect"

TS Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939)
Set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (1981)

Executive Summary

This paper attempts to explain why credit accumulation and transfer (CATS) is important across the UK’s system of lifelong learning (especially within higher education) and why it has largely failed to fulfil that promise.

It starts with a survey of the recent policy position and an exploration of what fully adopting CATS means for a higher education institution (HEI).

It proceeds to examine in detail the performance of the UK system, exploring the impact of devolution, and benchmarking the UK against North America and the European Union.

The paper then identifies an earlier phase of enthusiasm for modular course design and delivery, and describes how this approach came to be sidelined.

It concludes by making the case that reviving CATS will be critical in the UK’s drive to establish a comprehensive and progressive environment for post-compulsory education and training - within and beyond the higher education sector - as well as setting out the implications for institutional leadership and management.

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