The student as co‐producer: learning from public administration about the student–university relationship

Abstract

The dominant metaphor/model used to characterise the relationship of the student to the university, that is, the ‘student as consumer’, is partial and not appropriate to the realities of contemporary higher education. This article suggests that co‐production, a concept drawn from the public administration literature, offers a more appropriate metaphor. In this metaphor, the student, lecturers and others who support the learning process are viewed as being engaged in a cooperative enterprise focused on the production, dissemination and application of knowledge, and on the development of learners rather than merely skilled technicians.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the School of Education at the Ourimbah Campus of the University of Newcastle, Australia, and in particular Professor Keith Crawford for providing the base for the period of sabbatical leave during which this article was written. I would also like to thank Professor John Diamond and Professor Mark Schofield, colleagues at Edge Hill University, for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft. A paper based on this article was presented at ‘Transitions and transformations: developing learners and learning environments’, the Seventh Conference of Edge Hill University's Centre for Learning and Teaching Research, 4 June 2008.