Education International
have questioned why there wasn’t more widespread consultation with faculty about this move and are worried about potential damage this partnership might bring to AU’s reputation. Of course, AU is just one example of how ‘challenger universities’ might privatise the HE sector, and turn degrees into corporate profits. In October 2020, the global education business Pearson announced a partnership with Coventry University in the UK to run a new qualification ‘to give Pearson Higher National students access to a UK honours degree, as a seamless and integrated offer.’125 Awarded by the university, students will study for the qualification remotely through ‘Pearson Approved Centres’ within their home country. In this sense, the public-private partnership between Pearson and Coventry University outsources the provision of a degree to the commercial partner. We are not suggesting that these arrangements shouldn’t exist, and we recognise the need to expand HE access to more people at a lower cost. But, we think this provides an interesting case to explore how PPPs, mergers, acquisitions and integrations can work to hide or disguise profit making activities. Moreover, we need to examine how these aspirations for broader access are fulfilled. For example, are these courses actually taken up by individuals who would not otherwise access HE opportunities or those already following a HE path looking for cheaper, more flexible arrangements?
9. Campus in the cloud The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in rapid expansion of for-profit cloud infrastructures for universities. Indeed, there has been significant talk of HE institutions having to play ‘infrastructure catch up’ as they rapidly move to cloud systems that can handle the new demands of remote and hybrid delivery. Cloud solutions, like those offered by Google, include storage, analytics, big data, machine learning and application development.126 Instead of just using a cloud for email storage solutions, universities are now exploring the entire infrastructure of cloud computing: Google solutions create the powerful computing infrastructure that keeps today’s higher ed communities humming. Researchers can speed up 125 Pearson. 2020, 26 October. Pearson and Coventry University collaborate to create integrated BTEC Higher National Degree proposition. Pearson blog: https://www.pearson.com/uk/about-us/news-and-policy/news/2020/10/pearson-and-coventryuniversity-create-integrated-btec-hn-degree.html 126 Google. Powering possibilities with Google Cloud: https://edu.google.com/products/google-cloud/?modal_active=none&storycard_activeEl=for-institutions
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