TNAG-0795-FCO40-999-Policy-of-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-1978 — Page 170

Chart 2. 18 year old population and total full-time and sandwich students in higher education, Great Britain

1000

900

GB 18 year

800

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

Numbers (thousands)

old age group

Total higher education numbers

Actual

Projected

High

Central

Low

1960/1

64/5

68/9

72/3 76/7

80/1

84/5 88/9 92/3

Academic year

The traditional pattern continued

7. On the other hand, it is quite possible to envisage a pattern of higher education in the 1990s which differs in significant respects from that which obtains today. Courses might be longer (or shorter); the pattern of entry direct from school into higher education might be modified in various ways, for example by a growing tendency to seek some experience in employment before entering higher education; and the higher education system itself might reach out to embrace different types of students and to meet fresh needs, such as that of recurrent or continuing education. Developments such as these (many of which might not happen without the impetus of positive policy decisions of different kinds spread over time) need to be comprised within a different "family" of possibilities from those to which the above projections give rise.

8. This paper accordingly considers first the questions which appear to arise on the presupposition that the pattern (though not necessarily the scale) of higher education will remain much as it is now; and then proceeds to examine the different considerations which arise from possible modifications of that pattern.

9. The central projection in Chart 2 above suggests that total numbers in full-time and sandwich higher education might rise from the current figure of 520,000, through the current 1981 planning figure of 560,000 and up to 600,000 in 1984/85; numbers would then stabilise at that level for 6 years or so to 1990, when they would start to fall back to about 560,000 in 1992 and to about 530,000 in 1994. This would mean an increase of some 80,000 students over the next 6 years; followed by a contraction of 70,000 in the space of 4 years from 1990 to 1994; and possibly further contraction thereafter.

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