New Journal

Higher Education, Skills and Work-based Learning is a new peer-reviewed journal of UVAC. In the first issue John Hayes MP, the Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, provides a welcoming comment and there are articles from authors based in Britain, Ireland and the United States that give the issue an international feel. The second issue is also available online and has another strong set of papers. I should declare an interest as I am a member of the editorial board, but can assure you that I would be promoting it even if I was not.

Managing work-based learning

As noted in previous posts, successfully developing and managing work-based learning continues to be identified as a challenging area for higher education institutions. A recent publication by members of the PVC Employer Engagement Special Interest Group entitled University management of work-based learning provides a range of insights into how different institutions have addressed some of the challenges. The report is edited by Freda Tallantyre, published by the Higher Education Academy and well worth a read.

Another relevant conference

Here is another conference that is likely to be of interest...

Work Based Learning Futures 4 - Work Based Learning: Policy into Practice?
Wednesday 14th April – Thursday 15th April 2010
Middlesex University, Hendon Campus, The Burroughs, Hendon London NW4 4BT

The Work Based Learning Futures conference series began in 2007. Conferences have been organised and hosted alternately by University of Derby Corporate and the Institute for Work Based Learning at Middlesex University.

This conference, to be held at Middlesex University on 14 -15th April 2010, aims to illuminate the relationship between Policy (institutional, regional, national and international) and higher education level Work Based Learning (defined as learning through, at and for work). These policies could then be interrogated from a work based learning perspective and with consideration to the flexibility and capacity of work based learning in higher education to impact in the policy arenas.
Key policy areas which the conference will cover include:
- Higher education funding council policy: ‘Employer Engagement’, Enhancing Learning, Teaching and Assessment, Widening Access.
- Economic and business growth national policy: financing WBL and the position of WBL in the fees debate. Contributions relating to the potential of Work Based Learning to engage with the problems of the current economic downturn and preparing work based learners in coming out of the economic downturn would be particularly welcome.
- EU lifelong learning policy: Developing the Knowledge Economy, Widening Participation in Higher Education through Work Based Learning
- Research policy: research informed curriculum for WBL, Research Councils and WBL research, multi and trans-disciplinarity debates in research

Abstracts (300 words) of papers/workshops are invited by 22nd Feb 2010. Please email your abstract to Natasha Shukla n.shukla@mdx.ac.uk

Confirmation of acceptance of abstracts will be given by 5th March 2010
Three well received and nationally distributed collections of edited papers from the earlier conferences have been published www.uvac.ac.uk and a fourth volume resulting from this conference will be published in 2010 with highlights sent to key policy makers.

To register your interest in the Conference please email Janet Bain j.bain@mdx.ac.uk
The Conference rate is £100 including conference dinner (note that the conference is partly funded by the Centre for Excellence in Work Based Learning)
Work Based Learning Futures 4 is sponsored by the Centre for Excellence at Work Based Learning, Middlesex University and University of Derby Corporate.

Employer Engagement and Employability after the Crash

Free to download is the latest copy of Why Social Science Matters published by C-SAP the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics. Issues 2 is focuses on employability and employer engagement issues and includes papers from Patrick Ainley, Annika Coughlin, Vincent Carpentier, Max Farrar, Yiu Tung Suen, Matt Badcock Àngels Trias i Valls and myself. The issues derives from a C-SAP workshop earlier in 2007 and is well worth a read.

Who’s the customer? Who’s the employer?

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.