Calling Dearing II, Dearing II come in

Now the national curriculum is firmly established in schools, the inevitable mutterings about the standardisation of the curriculum in higher education are starting.

The Secretary of State may have prompted this by imposing a national curriculum on initial teacher training. A uniform programme in any area of higher education has implications for the rest of the sector. If it is teacher training today, what will it be tomorrow?

In some subjects, such as pharmacy, the professional body's influence over the university programme is so great that a national curriculum virtually exists. Things might not be too dissimilar in other discipline areas subject to the demands of the professions. What is the situation in law, in accountancy or in engineering? Some colleagues would rightly be quick to deny a uniformity of programmes in these subjects but close similarities at least must exist if the guardians of national standards are to be satisfied.

This trend raises significant issues concerning academic autonomy. Advances in mass communications systems for the delivery of university courses could force a standardised curriculum in subjects other than those related to the professions. Mass higher education is going to depend more and more on electronically delivered material. This in itself may imply standardisation.

At the heart of the debate are questions about academic freedom and subject integrity. It could be argued, for example, that if a national curriculum in English studies had existed 20 years ago, the productive "crisis" in English might not have occurred. Ironically, that "crisis" was in part a revolt against the canon of English literature; a standardisation of the subject. Colleagues in English were able to challenge and to effect change since they retained their academic freedom to do so. The present dangers in the context of financial expediencies are only too apparent.

A second argument considers not merely the relationship of universities with each other and with the professional bodies, but also with their feeder institutions.

If Dearing II follows the thinking of Dearing I, we may well encourage closer alliances at the curriculum level between post-16 and post-18 education. A post-16 lifelong learning modular system could provide multiple subject opportunities, multiple entry and exit points and multiple levels of qualification within a national framework.

All that implies there should be a necessary interaction between the university curriculum and the school/further education curriculum. If universities have designed their modules with the expectation only of A-level entry and experience, they are going to find increasing difficulty with the demands being made by GNVQ students. These students have different learning expectations. They demand changes in syllabus structure and delivery and assessment patterns. University curricula need not only take account of such changes but actively participate in them.

Some professional bodies are fiercely clinging to the gold standard of A level and to traditional learning and assessment procedures and linear models. This is understandable but there is, I believe, a burden of responsibility on both the universities and the professional bodies to encourage and allow measured diversity.

If this does not occur, education will become training, standards will not develop and universities will lose the essence of their identity.

Michael Scott is pro vice chancellor of De Montfort University.