In many studies of the history and development of higher education, it is common practice to refer to the 'English' or more generously though less precisely to the 'British' model of higher education. This model, obviously, has many facets the high degree of selectivity between those who apply and those who enter. 'If many are called, few are chosen'. It is also characterised by a relatively favourable staff: student ratio compared to many European higher education institutes. Another, and by no means the meanest feature, is its 'community ethic' often enshrined in the architecture and obliging students and teachers scholars all, it is assumed to live and work together in an institution where residentiality is regarded as the cement bonding together generations and interests. More recently, the arrival of the Polytechnics has added yet another feature, oftet taken to be typically 'British' the binary principle, distinguishing between the 'private' some would say, the 'noble' university sector from the publicly controlled 'less noble' sector represented by the polytechnics [I]. Again, this development is often assumed to be a broad feature typical of the United Kingdom system of higher education as a whole. In both cases, university or polytechnic, outsiders are apt to assume that developments in England and Wales are equally valid and applicable by extension to other parts of the United Kingdom. In fact, this is not so. Certainly, the sin of Anglocentricity is excusable when committed by those who do not hail from parts British. But its perpetuation by those who, living there, ought to know better is often a source for weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, particularly by Scotsmen. Over the past few years, the view that higher education in the United Kingdom is part of a monolithic and similar whole has come under increasing scrutiny. Two influences in particular have served to undermine the credibility of the Anglocentric viewpoint in this matter: first, the rise of 'nationalist' movements in Scotland and in Wales; second, the growth of 'educational administration' as a sub field within the area of education and higher education in particular. This is not to say, however, that the rise of Welsh or Scottish nationalism as a political movement was itself the single and most important agent behind the insistence that higher education in Scotland, let us say, differed and differs most profoundly from its counterpart south of the Anglo Scottish Border. Most Scotsmen, be they nationalist sympathisers or no, have always been aware of such differences in the structure, pedagogy and the assumptions underlying their post school education system. The rise of nationalist movements provided a new medium for an otherwise old message namely, that by their history, ethos and structures, several systems of higher education coexist within an apparently unitary framework. Such claims to cultural difference, the counterpoint to the Anglocentric interpretation have received further and weighty backing from enquiries undertaken by specialists in educational administration or political scientists examining the relationship between central and local
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Dec 1, 2006
Ambassador Francis Campbell 
Open Access