ABSTRACT

Higher education (HE), we are told, is increasingly for all. Governments and vice chancellors have been encouraging ‘widening participation’, to include more students from more backgrounds in more programmes in more institutions. At the same time, universities continue to reflect their mediaeval roots (directly, or by pastiche), hanging on to the gowns and hoods, titles and roles, of a feudal age, in which learners sit at the feet of their revered professors, advancing from Bachelor, to Master, to Professor of their subject, should they stick around long enough. The mediaeval universities were an essentially religious settlement, organised monastically, and in which the primary subjects read were Theology and Medicine. Their legacy is part of the contemporary higher education landscape.