New Reports on HE in FE

Many foundation degrees are delivered at Further Education colleges and two recent reports provide new data and insights on teaching HE in FE. Inspiring Individuals: teaching higher education in a further education college by Madeleine King and John Widdowson has been published by the Higher Education Academy while Understanding Higher Education in Further Education Colleges by Gareth Parry, Claire Callender, Peter Scott and Paul Temple is a BIS research paper. Both make recommendations for developing practice that will be of interest.

Students or Employees?

The question of whether those undertaking placement are employees or should be treated as employees was raised in a paper at the recent Political Studies Association Conference. The paper 'Masters on the Hill – The employment contract of internships' by Mary McLaughlin of Queen’s University Belfast, examines the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission bursary programme run by the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s and the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission. You might not each the same conclusion as the author, but it is a well argueld paper.

Placement Learning in Politics

The Higher Education Academy and Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) are running a one day workshop entitled New Developments in Placement Learning in Politics on 27 June 2012. The event will be held at SHU and aims to open up the discussion around the experiences of setting up politics placements and to share in areas of good practice. An anticipated output from the event is the development of an on-line support network, hosted by SHU, which offers a network of contacts and examples of good practice that can be used by colleagues across the country interested in learning more about the setting up and running of effective politics placement opportunities. Click here for further details.

Pedagogy for employability

The Higher Education Academy have just published a new report Pedagogy for employability written by Ann Pegg, Jeff Waldock, Sonia Hendy-Isaac and Ruth Lawton. It contains a lots of material and case studies that are relevant to the social sciences. Well worth reading.

Graduate employability data

The Office of National Statistic has published recent data on graduate employability. Social Scientists perform reasonably well in the earnings rankings, earning above the average for all graduates. Watch a short video of the finding.

The full report can be read here.

Wilson Review recommends more internships

That "every full‐time undergraduate student should have the opportunity to experience a structured, university‐approved undergraduate internship during their period of study" is one of the recommendations of the newly published Wilson Review on Business–University Collaboration. Examples of how such learning can be structured for politics students can be found on the placements page of IPED and in the book The Scholarship of Engagement for Politics edited by Steven Curtis and Alasdair Blair.

Farewell FDF

FDF (Foundation Degree Forward) is set to close at the end of July. Those involved in developing and delivering Foundation Degrees will be aware of the help, support, advice and encouragement provided by FDF over the years. The achievement of the target of 100,000 learners enrolled on Foundation Degrees demonstrates the success of the qualification and its ability to provide attractive learning opportunities to a wide range of people. FDF has done a great job in spearheading this development and, like many others, I 'd like to thank all those involved in the organisation for this.

Journal articles on placements and experiential learning

IPED – the International Political Education Database – is a new online bibliographic resource that lists peer-review journal articles relating to teaching, learning and assessment in politics, international relations, public administration and related fields. It includes a sub-section relating to ‘Service learning, Placement Learning and Internships’ and another to ‘experiential learning’, both of which should be of interest to readers of this blog.

Policing Conference

There is a call for paper for the 2011 Higher Education Forum for Learning and Development in Policing conference on “Police Learning: Professionalisation and Partnerships” scheduled for 6-7th September 2011 at The University of Northampton. The conference may be of particular interest to those exploring the implications of the recent Neyroud Review of Police Leadership and Training review Conference themes include:
• Inter professional education and multi-disciplinary policing practice
• Comparative policing: A UK-wide perspective
• Designing and delivering a new professional police service
• Professional policing : meanings, myths and opportunities
• Equality & diversity: In the context of HEI and Force partnerships
• Lessons from the front line. Student officers experience of HE and the relevance to policing practice

For further details on the conference and call for paper contact polcon2011@northampton.ac.uk

PSA Conference - London 2011

The Political Studies Association Annual Conference takes place in London next week. I will be chairing a panel on ‘Politics as a Professional Education’ which will include papers from Katherine Brown (Kings, London) on ‘A Learning Institution? The politics of Professional Military Education’ and Brid Quinn (Limerick) on ‘Reflection and research: reflection on research’. Other papers that are also of particular interest to those interested in work-based and experiential learning and the social sciences are Sarah Hale (Birkbeck, London) ‘Workplace Politics: Foundation Degrees in Local Government and the Public Sector’, David Bates (Canterbury Christchurch)‘Teaching Engagement’ and Annabel Kiernan (Manchester Met) ‘Connecting communities: Community Engagement and the Big Society at MMU’

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.

Citizenship and Politics

The latest issue of the Journal of Political Science Education (JPSE) is a special issue on Youth, citizenship and Political Science Education. Many of the articles raise issues that relate to experiential and work-based learning in the context of politics - but will also be of interest to others in the social sciences.

Higher Skills, Global Economy

As part of the Politics after Leitch project, we undertook some research into how the agenda for higher education related to broader changes in the global economy. Andrew Gunn (University of Leeds) and I developed this into an article entitled 'Higher skills and the knowledge economy: the challenge of offshoring', which I am pleased to say has just been published in the OECD's journal Higher Education Management and Policy. The paper considers the extent to which offshoring challenges some of the assumptions of policy makers and considers a number of strategies that might be pursued by higher education institutions.

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.

Sociology and Employability

C-SAP have recently published a 60 page report looking at employability and sociology in higher education. "Getting into Work: The Benefits of a Sociology Degree" is written by Max Farrar and Anna Gruszczynska and explores a range of issues such as graduate attributes and the role of community based learning. The relatively high rates of employment for sociology graduates was noted in the 2009 UK Government's Framework for Higher Education 'Higher Ambitions ', so it is useful to see how academics of the subject see the issues.

Some recent QAA publications

The QAA has published an information bulletin summarising some of the findings from the IQER process relating to Foundation Degrees. While a significant number of areas of good practice and innovation are identified, areas around assessment, work-based learning, student support and public information continue to be areas in which significant scope for improvement is identified. As highlighted in the publication of another recent report by QAA Scotland ‘Making it work – a guidebook to work-based learning’ – the challenges of developing such learning are not unique to Foundation Degrees. There is much still to learn in all these areas.

Policing and Higher Skills

Much of the higher skills provision delivered by social scientists over the last few years has been in the areas of police training and development. The Higher Education Forum for Learning and Development in Policing was formed a couple of years ago by representatives from HEIs working in this field and now has over twenty institutional members. They are holding their annual conference at UCLAN in September, with speakers from both education and policing sectors. More details can be found on the conference website.

Criminology and Employability

This event may be of interest.

*Support for student employability: Criminology a case study*

The University of Lincoln would like to invite you or a representative from your institution to our Social Science Careers Information Day on July 14th.

The aim of the event: To help you to better support those students who are considering pursuing a non-vocational degree in one of the ‘Social Science’ subjects, including criminology, politics, sociology and social policy.

This free event includes lunch and is supported through funding awarded for a current C-SAP mini-project.

Background: Lincoln University was awarded funding in 2009 to carry out research into the employability of criminology graduates; we think the results of this research will be helpful to any staff involved in advising students through the university application process or about employability issues.

Programme: We have put together what we hope will be an interesting and entertaining programme including contributions from academics, students, HE careers professionals and alumni. A draft programme is included with this invitation.

Location and time: The event is taking place in the new Enterprise@Lincoln centre at the University of Lincoln. Start time 10am until 3pm.


In order for us to plan the catering please could you book your place at the event by emailing Victoria Worricker at vworricker@lincoln.ac.uk by 30th June.
Please also state if you have any specific dietary requirements.


We look forward to seeing you on July 14th.

Jill Jameson – Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences

Mandy Jones – Head of Opportunities


****************

Draft Programme

Start 9.45 for 10.00

Coffee on registration

Welcome and Introduction to the research project.

What is criminology: Myth and Reality?

• Ice Breaker: What do you think criminology is?
• What employers think criminology is.
• Criminology: The academic discipline.

Coffee

Career aspirations and destinations:

• Undergraduate aspirations.
• DLHE results.
• Alumni destinations.

Employability in the undergraduate criminology curriculum:

• Criminology in the professions: a specialist employability module?
• Student experience.
• ‘Life after criminology’ DVD presentation.

World Café Lunch: Implications for practice beyond criminology…what do you think?

• Pre-entry guidance.
• Employability in the curriculum.
• Graduate careers guidance.

Round-up and departure 15.00 approx

Well Worth Reading

Those looking for case examples and conceptual discussions of experiential practice orientated learning in politics should look at a recent edited collection by Steven Curtis and Alasdair Blair. Their book The Scholarship of Engagement for Politics: Placement Learning, Citizenship and Employability is published at C-SAP and is can be accessed in e-format for free. It includes sixteen papers exploring practice at a range of higher education institutions and includes some papers written by students, reflecting on their experiences of placement learning.

The third most popular FD choice

HEFCE have just published the latest edition of Foundation degrees: Key Statistics. Much of the initial focus is on the overall number of students now enrolled on FDs - 99,475 - which is very close to the government's target for 2010-11.

Looking at the stats for subject areas Social Studies come in as the third most popular area for part-time students with 12% of 2008-09 entrants (behind Education and Business and Administrative Studies) and third for full-time students at 10% of entrants (behind Creative Arts and Design). No breakdown is given for the different areas of study within the Social Studies which includes economics, politics, sociology and social work.