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Atlas of Higher Education: A community focus
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2 Emergence of the Learning Community
Access to knowledge and learning is now recognised as a significant input to the competitiveness of regional and local communities. It represents a new factor influencing the development of industry and institutions and can be a significant input into urban and rural regeneration. Knowledge access, however, must be specifically related to local and regional requirements and attributes. Indeed if a new knowledge-based environment is not directly related to the local environment it can be a recipe for creating further regional and organisational marginalisation and social exclusion.
This environment puts higher education institutions in a new position as a potential key determinant of economic and social development for local communities through the regionalisation of the knowledge.
Some higher education institutions are already beginning to take on this new agenda as a part of their strategic direction. A number of underlying pressures and trends are contributing to an environment in which learning-based community engagement by higher education institutions is now worth pursuing with some energy.
The first of these is that to many, knowledge has become a tradeable commodity where there are short-term capital gains. In this environment, the knowledge creation and distribution core business of higher education institutions is under pressure to remain competitive in a market where private sector interest is expanding.
Second, publicly funded higher education institutions are under increasing pressure to become more efficient and make effective returns not unlike those demanded of the corporate sector by their shareholders and owners. As a result, campuses are changing from being loose and autonomous entities concerned with 'elite' education. They are now targeting a more universal education market and managing their human resources, budgets and infrastructure within a tight corporate oriented institutional framework. Universities now connect funding-related strategies to their knowledge production and distribution activity.
Third, sub-state regional and local areas are now, more than nation states, being considered a more effective platform to develop economic distinctiveness in the global economy. The global economy itself has become too complex, diverse and unstable as a platform to plan organizational future at a national level.
The diversity in regional attributes and potential also means that a national 'one model fits all' approach by decision makers will lead to wasted resources through ineffective design, targeting and take-up. It will generate sub-optimal returns at both regional and national level. Size is important in this. A region is large enough to capture most of the attributes that reflect its competitive strength in the global economy while at the same time is small enough that residents can play a meaningful role in the process of development and feel an attachment to the outcomes.
Related to this, many regional communities are becoming competent in representing and progressing their 'sense of place' interests in a self-help way. Through leadership, the organisation of social capital, networking, analysis, and strategic planning they now better understand the drivers for regional competitive development.
Fourth, there are now few regional communities throughout Australia that don't have reasonably close physical access to a higher education campus or learning centre. In many places there are also few other institutions (perhaps along with the local council) with the presence, longevity, independence, skill base, leadership and critical mass to make a significant difference to regional economic development.
Fifth, there is a growing expectation by communities that the publicly funded higher education institution in their area is more than just a 'good corporate citizen'. They now require institutions to contribute leadership, skills, infrastructure, facilities and targeted knowledge to strengthen the 'sense of place'. In this regard there is an issue of whether the higher education institution is only in the community or more fundamentally of it. At the same time there is a view within higher education, that universities should maintain a degree of eminence and distinctiveness in the learning process and not be seen as simply offering another 'off-the-shelf' product along with other forms of education.
Finally, in keeping with society's response to the knowledge-based global economy generally, populations now view learning as a life-long experience, a 'cradle to grave' concept, rather than giving it a fixed 'stage of life' parameter.
These trends and pressures, taken together, paint a picture of the need for an embedded learning culture tied to the social requirements, attributes and opportunities of the local community. The concept of the 'learning region' or 'learning community' connotes all of these issues in a manageable and meaningful way for the local and regional community and for the higher education institution.
Governments in a number of countries are exploring policy initiatives to foster community-based learning partnerships with education institutions. In the USA, the 1994 School-to-Work Act and the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 are designed to strengthen learning partnerships at the local community level. In Britain, the 1999 White Paper, Learning to Succeed: A New Framework for Post 16 Learning, put in place lifelong learning partnerships at the local community level to strengthen the link between local skill needs and learning institutions. A local network of Learning and Skill Councils, to be introduced in 2001, will also bring the planning and funding for learning and skill development programs closer to local requirements.
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