A number of policy pronouncements from Whitehall and other areas of government over the last few months have exhorted the sector to develop more 'flexible' degree programme provision.  Among the means of programme delivery that have been mentioned are more Foundation Degrees; more part-time degree programmes - both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels; 2 year accelerated degrees (with a third semester of teaching during the summer); distance learning provision (at undergraduate and postgraduate levels); and more cumulation of CPD experiences to build to a degree award of some kind.

One further area that has seen a lot of rhetoric in the last couple of years has been around 'employer engagement' with what to me are often naive statements about how employers are queuing up to work with universities on new degree programmes tailored to their needs - and with the employers paying a significant proportion of the costs of provision.  I shall dismiss these straightaway.  As a university we already work very closely with employers in a whole variety of areas - principally (but not exclusively) in the NHS.  But I have not seen a shred of evidence that there are hordes of employers out there wanting to push money our way to create degree programmes for them.

Today we had a discussion at UEB around the other possible types of flexible provision, based around a paper that was provided by colleagues from Planning and Governance Services and Learning and Teaching Services. We already offer a number of alternatives to the standard 3 / 4 year full-time undergraduate degree; but the question is whether we should take a strategic decision to create more.  One problem is cost.  The start up costs for a distance learning programme can be very high: one organisation with which I am associated has just budgeted over a quarter of a million pounds to develop an online Masters programme - with no certainty that it will attract students.  It is widely acknowledged that the costs of teaching two part-time students amount to more than teachjing one full-timer.   Foundation Degrees have recently seen the withdrawal of the special support from the Higher Education Funding Council that they have hitherto enjoyed.

I have argued in a number of arenas (for example in radio interviews) that teaching accelerated two-year degrees would be inappropriate for us.  The concept behind them is very much of the classroom and didactic teaching.  That is not in the ethos of Sheffield as a research-led university seeking to equip our students as lifelong learners who are able to learn for themselves in a critical manner through their engagement with inquiry-based learning and their participation in research projects and other self-motivated and self-defined learning tasks. In addition there is the crucial reputational issue that two year degrees would not receive recognition under the Bologna Process.  As we aspire to be seen as an international university, I do not believe we should be offering a qualification that is not portable into wider labour markets than that of the UK alone.

There are areas where we could bring in new means of acquiring an award - particularly through the accumulation of CPD activities, and through part-time routes within Masters programmes.  But I doubt that there is much scope for us in pursuing any of the other avenues.

Yet I am conscious that this leaves us open to adverse comments about all those lecture rooms, laboratories and design studios that stand empty for nearly half the year. Isn't this a gross waste of expensive resources?  One project I will watch with interest is aiming to bring Japanese students to Sheffield to undertake 'summer schools'.  If those are successful maybe we can expand such activities in the future, extending the reach of the university and generating new busibess.