現代英国の高等教育改革展望 : 政府政策討議文書『1990年代へ向けての高等教育の発展』に即して

More than twenty years have passed since the Robbins Report was published. Considerable changes have occured in the British higher education scene during that period. The advent of the Twentieth anniversary of publication of the Robbins Report coupled with the crisis that British higher education faces today gave rise to serious nation-wide discussion and studies on various aspects of the present and future system of British higher education.

Accordingly, a total of eleven volumes of the Leverhulme Report on the study into the Future of Higher Education (organized by the Society for Research into Higher Education) were published between 1981 and 1983. These were followed by two publications, one from UGC (A Strategy for Higher Education into the 1990s) and the other from NAB (Towards A Strategy for Higher Education into the late 1980s and beyond) in the autumn on 1984. Government response to these two advisory documents was the basis for its consultative document, The Development of Higher Education into 1990s (Green Paper) which appeared in May 1985.

What changes have occured in the British higher education scene during the last twenty years or so since the publication of the Robbins Report? What are the reasons why the Government decided to publish the Green Paper in 1985? After having given an overall view of these questions, this paper attempts to make clear the problems that British higher education faces today and the way that the Government higher education policy is directed by summarizing and commenting on the content of the Green Paper.