In the first class on my first day as a lecturer at Sheffield I found that one of the students was a 55-year old retiree from a senior post in an oil company. It so happened that the two research students who were assigned to support me in taking a practical class in statistics for first year students were also considerably older than me - one from an Egyptian university here to up-skill, and the other an ex-teacher pursuing a personal interest in her research topic. That instantly destroyed any stereotypical views I had about the likely demographics of students (of all levels of programme).
But it's now several years since I had a genuine mature student in any of my classes. Where once mature students amongst the 18-21 year-old undergraduates were not uncommon, they seem to have become rarer.
This afternoon, with over 100 others, I was at a launch event for the university's new offerings to seek to attract mature students and part-timers to study here once again. Nationally the numbers studying part-time have plummeted in recent years - presumably as a result of the 2012 fees regime. The general lack of part-timers in 'mainstream' programmes in the UK contrasts strongly with my experience in other European countries where a significant proportion of students work alongside their study and present themselves for examination whenever they feel ready - thus extending their programmes over a number of years as, effectively, part-timers. The benefits seem obvious to me - both to the students themselves and to the wider classes of which they are part where they can bring their external experiences to bear in discussions and other study tasks.
When the University of Sheffield started (and I guess this is true for most UK universities like us) the majority of students were studying part-time. It was the later 1940s when the balance shifted to full-timers. Government policies since the 1990s have almost consistently acted to discourage part-time study in a variety of ways. Some universities have closed down such study routes.
Today four students spoken eloquently, through videos, about what the opportunity to enter higher education as mature student learners meant to them. But equally moving were the interventions by two of my executive board colleagues who demonstrated the significance of mature student learning in their own backgrounds. One pointed out that "My mother became a university student - but by that time I was already a professor". The other recounted how she had obtained her own first and second degrees while working full time, and whilst also bringing up a young family.
The image of students is too dominated by the stereotype of the 18-21 year old school leavers. Others have as much, if not more, to gain from key decisions to come into higher education at other ages and through different modes of study. Against the national odds, I hope we succeed in keeping such opportunities open.
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