Implications for Regional Courses from the Pathways Paper

As I understand the system it seems to me highly likely that a significant number of the sponsored candidates who train on regional courses will in future only receive two years (6 terms) of training.  I don't know what proportion of your candidates who are over 32, who are sponsored with the expectation that they will not be incumbent status and who will not be nationally deployable, but I guess that for many courses 40 - 50% may be typical.  All these candidates on 60 points only need to have 10 points to their 'credit' and they end up in the 2 year provision.  They may well get these points by being a Reader, by having significant ministerial experience, by having some prior learning.  In other words, it seems to me likely that a majority of those on 60 points will have a two year programme. (I note also that 2 years in practice means 5 terms or a very difficult final term which is merged with ordination.)

Leaving aside large questions about why some ministers are being valued more than others, there are two implications for us as institutions that concern me.

First, courses could have reduced student numbers by between 25% - 35% within the next few years, unless this is offset by a greater number being sponsored.  This would have a massive effect on our funding and in some cases viability.  Do you see it this way?

Second, it would become essential for Courses to devise a two year programme, rather than seeing this as an exception within a normal three year pathway.  I could begin to see ways in which this could be done, but again it would have considerable implications for our validated programmes, and the capacity for what are often small institutions to deliver the form of training that wasn’t just a cut down version of the three year programme.

I can see, and in many ways support, the logic of this scheme.  I entirely agree that prior learning should be built on; I entirely agree that Readers should have their training and experience 'counted' if they enter training for ordained ministry.  All this is consistent with Hind and its desire to see progression taken seriously.  However, what Hind sought is often not in place (and it may be many years before it is): Reader training is often not accredited; it is often not shaped in ways that would enable exemption from the programmes offered for ordination training; prior theological learning may well carry credits, but whether it enables exemption from a programme (either for the us, or for churches, or for accrediting HEIs) is more often much more dubious.  All these factors make it likely that a two year programme will not lead to a Diploma - a benchmark of Hind and an important part of the learning outcomes.

The Revd Canon Dr David Hewlett