Flexibility has long been on the agenda in higher education, particularly in the context of adult education. However, young people also need flexible and personalised education: flexibility offers a wealth of opportunities. By allowing flexibility in pace and timing, students can slow down or speed up their studies at no extra cost. Informal carers, students requiring support, or students pursuing extracurricular activities alongside their studies can thus organise their time according to their own needs, manage their workload, and thereby get more out of their time at university. Flexibility in mobility and course scheduling enables students to organise their curriculum more according to their own preferences. This allows students to pursue, broaden and/or specialise in their own interests, and to respond more effectively to changes in the labour market.

To ensure the success of the move towards greater flexibility in higher education, the ISO believes that more comprehensive guidance and information for students is essential. It is also important that entry requirements for further study programmes or (elective) modules at other faculties and institutions allow scope for the many new learning pathways that may arise as a result of this flexibility. Furthermore, the ISO believes that maintaining a study community is essential for students’ motivation and social development. Finally, students’ well-being must be closely monitored in this regard: with the growing range of options, it is important that the pressure to perform and the pressure to choose do not become too great.