A government-funded study on the dramatic decline of part-time higher education will aim to redress perceived failings of the sector¡¯s own report on the problem, one of its authors has said.

John Storan, director of Continuum, the Centre for Widening Participation Policy Studies at the University of East London, said a previous study into the issue by Universities UK had been ¡°short on answers¡±. From 2010-11 to 2012-13 there was a 37 per cent drop in the number of part-time students.

The UUK report released in October warned that this fall was set to continue and called for an ¡°urgent¡± push to promote part-time study.

But The Power of Part-time: Review of Part-time and Mature Higher Education, led by Sir Eric Thomas, vice-chancellor of the University of Bristol, stopped short of calling for an end to the equivalent or lower qualifications rule, which in 2008-09 ended funding for students taking second degrees.

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Speaking at the Association of Colleges (AoC) annual conference in Birmingham on 20 November, Professor Storan said the report had been ¡°great on analysis but short on answers¡±. ¡°It stopped short of the¡­¡®OK, what might we do about it¡¯ questions,¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s the bit that we want to try to pick up around, particularly from a college perspective.¡±

The new study, jointly funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the AoC, will look specifically at part-time higher education in further education colleges. Announced in June, the project is set to take two years and is being carried out by Continuum.

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If full-time higher education had suffered a similar decline it would be considered a ¡°national disaster zone¡±, Professor Storan said. ¡°The fact that we¡¯re not having that kind of debate says something about the standing and perception of part-time higher education,¡± he added.

He warned that the contraction of part-time higher education was not merely a blip that had occurred in the past two years. ¡°You can go back five, six, seven years and you can see this [decline],¡± he said. ¡°So that might suggest that we¡¯re not at the bottom of a trough yet.¡±

david.matthews@tsleducation.com