Essaying an idea

Back in 2023 I entered an essay competition having not written an essay as such for decades. But this was a rather special event.

https://www.ahua.ac.uk/meet-the-shortlist-of-the-dr-jonathan-nicholls-essay-prize-competition/

Launched by AHUA, the Dr Jonathan Nicholls Memorial Essay Prize Competition was established to commemorate a much valued colleague and former Chair of the Association. 

The opportunity was to write an essay on the subject of:

Higher Education Reimagined: identify one innovative idea that would transform HE institutions for the better and consider how we make it happen in practice.

As AHUA noted Jonathan was a remarkable leader in our sector:

Dr Jonathan Nicholls was a distinguished university senior manager. He held the positions of Registrar at the Universities of Warwick and Birmingham and was latterly Registrary at the University of Cambridge from 2007 to 2016. He also worked with Shakespeare Martineau’s education practice as Director of Strategic and Policy Services. He was Chair of AHUA from 2013 – 2016. He has been called the first ‘career Registrar’ and was hugely influential in the sector.

The competition was proposed by AHUA members as a way of paying tribute to a much valued member of their community.

It did feel like a great way to pay tribute to him. Jonathan was a terrific leader, mentor and friend to me over many years and I was determined to offer something as part of the essay competition in his memory. 

As I was writing the essay I imagined him reading it, tutting occasionally and adding pointed (but always constructive) comments with his red pen.

Not the missing winner

Anyway, I didn’t win the competition but it was an honour to be shortlisted (you can see details of the winner and their essay here).

I was also delighted that HEPI agreed to publish a slightly edited version of the essay. You can see Part One and Part Two here:

Setting the Record Straight: the Case for a National Student Administration Management System – PART ONE

Setting the Record Straight: the advantages and costs of a National Student Administration Management System – PART TWO

The basis of the essay is a proposal that a national student record system be selected, procured and deployed in every higher education institution in the UK thereby delivering significant benefit to all institutions, students and staff and resulting in substantial financial savings and major reductions in organisational pain. The impact of this would be transformative, over time, for the sector and bring significant benefits. 

There is at least one country which has proved that this is possible: the shining example of the success of such a model is the Swedish higher education system where there is a national student record system, known as Ladok which has been adopted by all Swedish universities. If a similar system operated in the UK it would remove a huge amount of pain and cost from HEI operations.

Some surprising follow up

Since the essay was published I’ve had contact with a number of different people and organisations who wanted to discuss the possibility of such a system. Foremost among these was a meeting with Mauritz Danielsson and Magnus Morck, CEO and Product Owner respectively, of Sweden’s Ladok. They talked through the implementation, development and governance of Ladok. It really works for them and seems extremely cost effective. It was fantastic to meet with them too and to learn all about how Ladok came to pass in Sweden.

Other countries also have looked at or are implementing such a model including Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. Indeed Denmark is well on the way with this approach – a colleague who got in touch from there observed though that there are big challenges beyond system procurement, acquisition and implementation. He noted that to ensure everyone really benefited from a new system then significant standardisation of processes is required. He added that this was challenging enough among the eight Danish universities involved but might be even harder with the even larger number of UK institutions participating. Data definitions are also crucial to ensure there is a precise common understanding of what a ‘student’ and ‘programme’ mean in the context of a the system. 

Interest in the UK

Colleagues in the UK who got contacted me were definitely interested in the approach although it does not feel given all of the other challenges that this Is likely to be at the top of the sector’s to do list in 2024. It could also be suggested, following the news of some significant developments in the student records systems market, that we are nearly there anyway. Back in October 2023 Ellucian, which has a chunk of the UK market, bought up Tribal which enjoys the lion’s share of student management system sales in the UK. As noted in the Pie:

The move could give Ellucian a sizeable majority of the UK student management market, according to Enroly. Enroly data estimates Tribal’s student information system (SITS) has a 70% market share in student management systems and Ellucian has 21%. Other student management systems make up nine per cent.

So, one provider will have over 90% of the market. It’s almost a national system already although a long way from the Swedish model.

Nevertheless, I still think the Ladok approach is an idea worth exploring, especially given the costs and challenges the sector is currently facing.