Putting students in the driving seat. Is it safe to remove the L-plates?

The title of the white paper, ‘Students at the heart of the system’, reflects a sentiment that most of us in HE would agree with, and a major focus in recent years has been on student-centred learning, students as researchers (eg Walkington, 2008) and students as participants in learning communities (eg O’Donovan et al, 2008). Vince Cable and David Willets claim that the white paper will be ‘doing more than ever to put students in the driving seat’ (BIS, 2011: 2). But students are being asked to do more than drive their own learning; they will be expected to drive the design and provision of learning and teaching through their decisions about which institution to choose and evaluation of their programmes.