Within higher education these days, we often come across the idea that students should be seen as customers. This can sometimes become a rather polemic debate, with the best and worst implications of the term becoming centre stage. However, whether we recoil from the idea of our students seeing our modules as just another item on the supermarket shelf or embrace the notion of students taking a more active role in choosing what and how they want to study, in both cases it is the student who remains at the centre of attention. Contrast this with the idea expressed in the CBI report Stepping Higher (supported by UUK and HEFCE) that we should “re-think that traditional university-student relationship to give employers a central role” (p.11). The dangers of an approach that replaces a student focus with an employer focus is highlighted in a recent paper published in Education and Training by Julie Drake, Joanne Blake and Wayne Swallow. Drawing on a case study of a Foundation Degree produced in partnership by the University of Huddersfield and First Direct, they argue convincingly that the higher skills agenda “has to include engagement of employees rather than just engaging employers” (p.40).
Of course, in some cases, it can be difficult to identify who the employer is at all. In a paper that Sarah Hale and I presented to the Higher Education Academy conference in 2008 we considered the result of work that Sarah had undertaken exploring the experiences of local councillors studying higher education courses. The elected councillors are not ‘employees’ in any normal sense and might well be considered the employers themselves, as they have overall charge of the council. Yet, they are often cast in the role of employees and the object of training and development programmes. If all this shows us anything, it is that the identities of all those involved in the higher skills agenda are perhaps more complicated and fluid than simple definitions may suggest. All the more work for us social scientists to try and make some sense out of then – as both researchers and teachers.
