Questions over the future of part-time PhDs reveal an irresistible pull to return higher education to its elitist past under the guise of issues of quality assurance.
Technology affords the means to monitor individual students' progress without the need for the factory-style control of education.
Assuming a static level of funding in the UK, from those qualified students wishing to undertake doctoral study, only a select few would be able to do so.
From my perspective as one of many US-trained PhDs whose studies were neither full time nor fully supported, closing this route to doctoral students in the UK would be a backwards step and would narrow participation.
Martha Young-Scholten
Senior lecturer
Newcastle University