Microcredentials: The Key to Delivering on the LLE

The LLE has the potential to deliver meaningful change to educational opportunities, offering a more personalised learning approach with points of access that fit the individual and the shape of their lives. In this article, Dr Annabel Kiernan (Pro Vice Chancellor - Academic) and Vanessa Dodds (Head of Educational Research and Evaluation) of Staffordshire University argue that flexibility of finance, credits and regulation is key to its successful implementation.

The Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE), part of reforms to post-18 education and training, is one of a myriad of measures that the current Government is focusing on to support more people to access high-quality courses that meet the needs of employers and help address future skills gaps.

From 2025, the LLE will offer people a loan worth £37,000 in today’s tuition fees, which can be used flexibly over their working lives to pay for short courses, modules or full courses, whether at college or at university. 

This will provide access to loans equivalent to four years of post-18 education which can be drawn down at any stage in life. The loans will be available for both modules and full years of study at higher technical and degree levels (levels 4 to 6) in colleges or universities.

Like existing student loans, the LLE will be paid directly to the university or college where they are studying and will only need to be repaid once they are earning over a certain amount.

It will also introduce the concept of ‘course year’ as opposed to an ‘academic year’ to allow fee limits to apply with greater precision according to when the course starts. This supports a more flexible pattern of study. 

The progression of this Bill and the call for a skills revolution to deliver regional economic growth offers new opportunities for the Higher Education sector to partner with industry and with learners to support increasingly personalised pathways to valuable qualifications.

How Staffordshire University is Approaching the LLE

Staffordshire University has an important role to play in making sure these opportunities work for learners who already choose to study with us and for those who later want to further develop their skills via high education during their working lives.

Continuing Professional Development, Masterclasses, work-based education and training have always formed a part of our portfolio, but the arrival of the LLE enables us to look with a new lens at how we can shape our courses and qualifications to fit the needs and circumstances of our learners.

Access to Higher Education brings with it a whole range of benefits to individuals and communities – boosting lifetime earnings, enhancing health and wellbeing, shaping social engagement, and promoting confidence to list but a few.

Staffordshire University delivers qualifications at all levels of Higher Education, and in the academic year 2021/22, more than 22,500 students were taught directly by our University or by one of our collaborative academic partners within the UK.

A further 7,500 students were enrolled in 2021/22 on courses delivered by our overseas partners who collaborate with our own staff in teaching and research.

Student Demographics and Widening Access

We recognise and embrace that we are unique in the Higher Education sector – which brings us both challenges and opportunities.

Just over 40 per cent of our full-time and apprenticeship undergraduates are mature students. Of this, 28 per cent are classed as being in the bottom 10 per cent of the deprivation index – which is significantly above the sector new entrant average of 21 per cent.

Forty-five per cent of our full time and apprenticeship undergraduate new entrant population are from low participation areas, nearly double the sector average of 28 per cent.

Our campus locations and the diverse communities we serve affirm our commitment to widening access to underserved groups in Higher Education, providing excellent learning and teaching, facilitating economic and social mobility for our graduates and improving the quality of life for those in our wider communities.

Staffordshire University recently articulated its approach to educational gains, as an individual and a collective outcome. Studying at university brings benefits to individuals but also the collective, place-based gains of having a strong university which partners with businesses and communities to deliver additional value to the places in which we are located.

So, continuing to engage with those stakeholders and reflecting on how we can shape our courses to better fit the lives of our learners and their future ambitions is key.

LLE is one of those important junctures when we can look again at how we adapt what we do, and how we do it, in order to support our local economies and wider social mobility.

Flexibility, Personalisation and Microcredentials

Significantly, the LLE brings with it the ability for a learner to flex their learning and earning and to add to their skills as the needs of their families, careers, businesses, and customers evolve.

There is a real opportunity for LLE to provide additional dynamism and agility to flex to future skills needs and for learners to pace their studies as needed. In that sense we take another step towards a personalised learning experience where universities adapt to the needs of the learner rather than vice versa.

Staffordshire University, which has a focus on work-integrated learning, digital innovation and social mobility, has a well-developed short course offer and has a significant microcredential portfolio which was developed with local businesses.

Indeed, we are leaders in the development and provision of microcredentials for the sector, which has resulted in a research collaboration with the Lifelong Education Commission and funding from the European Social Fund for our Staffordshire E-skills and Entrepreneurship Gateway.

Our current suite of micocredentials reflects regional economic priorities with a focus on digital skills, web and data analytics and carbon net zero business development and are free at the point of access to Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire based students, graduates and SMEs.

With the arrival of a funding system which supports rather than punishes the need to pace learning, we will be extending our microcredentials this year to facilitate both upskilling/reskilling as well as supporting transitions into higher education.

A Strategic Vision for the LLE

Working with businesses to harness the employer voice to extend our higher-level skills support in the region, and also providing competency based microcredentials to pave the way for learners to continue or return to education, is going to be key to our new portfolio.

LLE is likely to be available to learners when studying for 30 credits as part of a meaningful qualification, so our approach will be to cluster microcredentials so that individuals will be able to stack their 30 LLE credits from smaller pieces of learning – typically at 10 notional credits.

Crucially, our offer will also be hybrid. We believe this is important because the benefits of accessing university expertise, resources and facilities and to share a learning experience with others provides important additionality and value and retains microcredentials as a higher-level skills and education offer, separating it from workplace training.

There needs to be further innovative thinking about the funding mechanism for lifelong learning. Like the Apprenticeship Levy, a skills, talent, education levy which is available through local authorities, NHS Trusts (supporting mechanisms to reverse health barriers in communities), the Department for Work and Pensions (to provide microcredentials as part of a strategic approach supporting people back in to work), and schools and colleges to act as a lever for transition to further and higher study.

Part of our strategic intent as a university is to act as a place-shaper, supporting all those who live, work and study with us. The LLE will support our continuing commitment to being a ‘Catalyst for Change’ and a force for social good – helping us is in our mission to transform the lives of people who will, in turn, transform our society and the places in which we live.

A key part of being successful is for us to better understand the match (or mismatch) between short- and longer-term labour market needs and current educational attainment. Matching economic needs means we can deliver real economic mobility; it does not mean that only certain subjects have value.

Creative disciplines, arts and humanities have a fundamental part to play – both in terms of professional development and careers but also more broadly in the economic growth and social capital of communities.

The Way Forward

As we move forward, Staffordshire University will continue to be agile and responsive to changing educational dynamics. We are bold and ambitious, with digital innovation at the core of our pedagogical approach and committed to furthering our ability to personalise learning through digital coaching and tailored academic interventions.

At our core, we are determined to provide the right opportunities for people to access higher education and improve their life chances. This is why we will keep on advocating for flexibility of access to higher learning opportunities through flexible funding arrangements and delivering access to, and participation in, education which is lifelong and life wide. We can only hope that the Government feels the same.

About the authors

Dr Annabel Kiernan joined Staffordshire University as Pro Vice Chancellor - Education in May 2021, having worked in higher education for nearly twenty-five years.

Annabel previously worked at Nottingham Trent University as Deputy Dean for the School of Social Sciences, leading the Education portfolio.

Prior to NTU, Annabel was the Head of Education for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she was also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Football and its Communities.

Annabel has also held posts at Sheffield Hallam University and at the University of the West of Scotland, where she was Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration and Public Policy. 

Annabel studied Economics (major in Politics) at the University of Manchester, gained a distinction for her MA European Studies at Newcastle University, and was awarded her PhD in policy-making theory from the University of Warwick. 

Throughout her career Annabel has had a commitment to higher education access and inclusion, innovating teaching and the student experience, social mobility and social justice.

Vanessa Dodd is the Head of Education Research and Evaluation at Staffordshire University.

Vanessa previously worked at Nottingham Trent University in different roles first serving as an Education Research and Evaluation Specialist and then as a Student Experience Manager for the School of Social Sciences.

Vanessa worked as a researcher in the International Centre for Guidance Studies at the University of Derby where she delivered evaluations for a wide variety of organisations such as the DfE, Teach First, the Gatsby Foundation and various local authorities.

Vanessa studied Applied Sociology at Clemson University in the US. Vanessa is committed to delivering research and evaluation that supports the continuous enhancement of the student experience.