Reference is made in Flexible Pedagogies: part-time learners and learning in higher education to a selection of case studies that illustrate how flexible pedagogies have been developed to support the needs of part-time learners.
This case study is an example of a part-time course developed in partnership with the Professional Golfers Association (PGA)
University of Birmingham
The FdSc programme is a 240 credit foundation degree delivered part-time through distance learning (and annual one-week residential blocks) by the PGA at The Belfry. The programme is delivered to approximately 300 students per year across three years (80 credits per year) and offered at level C & I.
The students are from the UK EU and overseas and a requirement for undertaking the programme is that they must be employed for at least 30 hours per week at a golf facility (which will allow them to apply the theory they learn). Additional programme entry requirements are that they must have become an ‘assistant professional’ (a process linked to golfing ability and having a handicap of 4.4 or better to be eligible to play a 36 hole competition within 15 shots of standard scratch).
The programme itself is a reflection of the development of the golf industry and is directly aligned to membership of the PGA (and therefore provides an industry standard ‘licence’ to be employed). The education system at the PGA has been running for over 50 years and has gone through a number of phases - best explained through a postgraduate thesis on career development in the game (Bennett 2011 from: http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/1596/1/bennett_11_MPhil.pdf). Students study modules across a number of key academic areas – namely sports coaching sports science business management and equipment technology which allows the modules to reflect the needs of the industry from an academic and applied way.
As the programme is one of only two ways the students can become PGA Golf Professionals (the other being the three-year full-time BSc programme based at the University of Birmingham) the students reflect a wide range of academic abilities. For instance there are UK students with non-traditional backgrounds (equivalent to five GCSE passes) and students with masters and PhDs both undertaking the same programme. The majority however are 18-year-old students with the equivalent of one or more A-levels.
