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As a former UK Secretary of State for Education, I have always found the concept of tertiary education somewhat slippery. Its voluntary nature means that different incentives are required to encourage voluntary take up of education opportunities. As this phase comes at the beginning of adulthood, it also means finding approaches to learning that can easily take place side by side with work and other life commitments.

For these reasons, further education colleges have always had substantial issues with the coherence of their own mission as, over time, the sector picked up different non-school roles with different educational emphases. Various governments have tried to get this a lot clearer, but in general unsuccessfully. The clarity which is needed really requires a medium-term to long-term approach, ideally consensually, and this has usually been absent.

‘There is a growing consensus that in principle education … should be part of a “lifelong learning” approach … With that there are related issues about where responsibility lies and, more profoundly, what ‘lifelong learning’ is really about.’

There is a growing consensus that, in principle, education should not simply be front-ended in an individual’s life but should be part of a ‘lifelong learning’ approach, whether from the point of view of skills for work or for personal fulfilment and capacity in an increasingly rapidly changing world. And from that, the question arises: What institutional structure can sustain this? With that there are related issues about where responsibility lies and, more profoundly, what ‘lifelong learning’ is really about.

The blog posts in this special issue set out very well the range of positive possible futures for tertiary education and, in so doing, highlight the conflicts and difficulties involved in determining policy in this area. They make it clear that the main challenges to be addressed are:

• establishing a progressive qualifications structure in place of the currently generally incoherent and incomprehensible system; I have myself always favoured assessed attainment (like music grades) for everyone, as these incentivise progress for every individual, rather than setting up competitive hoops to be jumped through
• creating well-understood pathways through which people of all education capacities and past experiences can choose new learning opportunities
• developing a range of different modes of study, including effective online learning
• finding ways to engage both public and private sector employers in scaling up their own organisations, and the people within them, to deal with the rapidly changing world around them
• creating a simple and supportive funding system that makes it clear to what extent the individual, the employer and the state each contribute the necessary financial resources
• establishing a functioning relationship with devolved regional and local government
• identifying the place of research-intensive universities in a collaborative network of education provision
• resolving such challenges would reduce the tension involving competition and collaboration between institutions and so maximise and broaden educational opportunities.

This daunting list of challenges explains the reasons why it’s been so difficult to achieve a coherent tertiary system in England. Each of the challenges is very difficult even with the best will in the world. A wide range of individuals and organisations have their own competing visions and ideals as well as their own vested interests. The consequent contesting approaches make agreement about the best way to proceed extremely difficult. However, the starting point is openly to acknowledge the dilemmas within each challenge, on the basis of which a political process can be established to identify solutions.

The good news is that a great deal of common ground already exists:

• that there should be a coherent overarching responsibility for the strategic direction of tertiary education for example a ‘Tertiary Education Commission’ to promote partnership, co-ordination and collaboration, at either national or regional/local level
• that there needs to be regional/local power, possibly including funding resources, in order to ensure that the educational opportunities which are needed recognise local and regional needs and ambitions rather than a national straightjacket – this is difficult because ‘English devolution’ is not coherent across the country and is currently in a state of substantial flux; the underdeveloped English regions of 15 years ago no longer really exist and it’s not clear what will emerge
• that all employers, both public and private, need to be involved in the educational process, not simply those in the conventional fields such as construction and engineering – over decades, various efforts to achieve this have proved unsuccessful
• a co-ordinated and consistent approach to qualifications has to be established.

Each of these changes is difficult, even very difficult, but – based on the common ground that already exists – it is possible to see how to find an agreed approach that can give shape and coherence to the idea of an integrated tertiary education.