Flexible learning pathways in British higher education: a decentralized and market-based system

Flexible learning pathways in higher education provide routes to the acquisition of knowledge and skills at different life stages, to meet the different needs and circumstances of the learner. They can involve boundary crossing between different sources of knowledge, different subject fields, different institutional providers, and different forms of learning. Pathways can take learners on journeys through expanded and differentiated higher education systems and beyond. This report draws on the perspectives of national higher education bodies and a range of institutional providers of higher education to identify current policies and practices concerning flexible learning pathways in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) higher education system, though with a main focus on the system in England.