ID185 Have our programmes become too specialist?

The Idea

Considering increasing the volume of broader degree programmes allowing students to study more than one subject which would return to our routes and give Keele a USP in the competitive higher education market.   

Why This Idea Should Be Considered

The Keele debate on the 23rd March and Strategic Conversation on the 26th March both explored breath versus depth of curriculum. Whilst Keele used to be the place you could come to do two degrees in one (and we don’t want to go back to the combined honours system which often resulted in completely separate silos with nothing to link the two subjects), as part of Accelerated Redesign, we saw an increase in broader degrees which enable students to complete a degree in two subjects but in an integrated way with combined projects. Is this something we should be routinely considering rather than single honours – it wouldn’t be a move back to combined honours but would give Keele back a USP and make us distinctive in the market? In part this would build on the role Keele was envisaged to have in attempting to overcome the ‘two cultures’ problem that was influential in the 1950s and that the growing division between science and humanities was a hinderance in solving the world’s problems. 

How We Would Implement This Idea

The work was begun as part of Accelerated Redesign when some of the most common combined honours programmes were replaced by degrees enabling students to take two subjects and allowing in many areas for a proper integration of the programmes and combined project. We need to consider increasing this model rather than what it appears we have been doing in looking at the local competitors and offering the same programmes as they do and not taking programmes forward if there is no perceived market (i.e. no other universities using the same degree title), why can’t Keele be market leading or breaking? 

We would need to conduct market research on whether considering broader degree programmes would attract students. The initial tranche of these programmes recruited for September 2025 giving us two rounds of admissions data alongside the wider higher education market.

What Success Would Look Like

Keele was founded on the principle of interdisciplinary education, and students entering Higher Education often can still have broad interests and still be exploring their career pathways. The focus in the recent debate was on how we could prepare our students for the world of work in the AI era with a recognition that AI can replicate entry level jobs but with a curriculum of proper interdisciplinarity, we would be equipping students with breadth and depth of their subjects and the links between them. In the words of Sally Bucknell, Culture and Inclusiveness Director at EY and Deputy Pro-Chancellor, what employers are looking for in graduates ‘isn’t what they know when leave university but how quickly they can learn, unlearn and learn’ and a truly interdisciplinary curriculum with a focus on integrated single honours possibly over straight single honours in some subjects such as the Humanities might be the way to ensure our graduates are as prepared as they can be for the future.