I’ve taken part in a number of lifelong loan entitlement (LLE) focused events with colleagues across the sector, the Department for Education, and the Office for Students (OfS) – the latter of which have been doing heavy lifting to determine technical aspects of LLE implementation.
The scale and quality of consultation in and around the sector makes me hopeful that we can get LLE right – however, tension remains that the policy may be trying to do too many things at once.
For example, how will the government piece together the notion of lifelong learning societal and individual good with the more instrumental demands such as economic productivity and the need to increase the sum total of degree level learners? There is still much that policy needs to do in order for the sector to deliver: institutional structures will need to be transformed, regulation and quality must be considered, and provision will need to match any evidenced demand.
