Dr Liz Beaty

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Welcome
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Dr Liz Beaty Director (Learning and Teaching)
Support for Workbased Learning - HEFCE Policy
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The Economic Challenge

• Productivity and competitiveness
• UK GDP per capita just above median OECD
  countries (OECD)
• need to raise general skill levels to absorb
  innovation and take advantage of new
  technologies (OECD)
• HE participation
• UK HE participation rising but still only OECD
  average
• Leitch interim report current targets
  insufficient for competitiveness
• Currently in UK
• Relatively low employer demand
• Workforce development more training offered to
  the highly qualified
• HE foundation degrees
• but decline in sandwich years 1999-2005 (22,850
  to 17,810)

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Policy context

• The Skills Agenda
• White papers (HE 2 Skills Strategies FE)
• Regional Skills Partnerships
• Sector Skills Councils
• Train to Gain
• Leitch Review
• Employer engagement with learning
• value, invest and participate - through
• relevance of curriculum
• clear guidance and brokerage
• stronger role in purchasing provision

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The role of HE

• Government aim is to maximise the impact of HE
  level skills in the workplace on
• Competitiveness and productivity
• Widening participation
• Improving public services
• Mechanism sought is more
• Vocationally relevant HE provision
• Flexible and responsive HE provision
• Employers investing more in HE level skills
• Employees achieving HE level skills
• Business-HE collaboration
• Focus is responsiveness to employer demand,
• and also progression towards the 50
  participation target

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Issues for the sector
Fees new regime post 2009 new economy who
pays for what? Demographic downturn post 2010
Continuing to widen participation reaching
out into the workforce Integrating work and
learning throughout life economy, social
equity, personal development
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And.

• The sector is already highly engaged
• Nearly 14 of PT UG and 21 PG have fees paid by
  own employer or UK industry
• 10 of PT undergrads and 4 of PT PGs have fees
  paid by DoH/NHS/Social care
• 117 of 130 HEIs have a dedicated enquiry point
  for SMEs
• 106 of 130 HEIs provide short bespoke courses at
  company premises
• 103 HEIs report that employers are actively
  involved in development of content and regular
  reviewing of the curriculum.

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Learning for business development the gap in
support
Type of relationship
Shaping the curriculum
Supporting employees research
Continuing education
Stakeholder
Curriculum delivery
CPD for employees
Consultancy for public sector
Collaborative research
Sandwich years
FDs
Bursaries, sponsorship
Spin off companies
Student consultancy
Start up companies
Partner
Research facilities access
Tailored courses with credit
Co-funded courses
Product development
APEL
Venture capital investment
Incubation facilities
Accreditation of in-house training
Contract research
Facilities access
Customer
Bespoke courses Without credit
Licensing/IP
Learning brokerage services
Staff consultancy
KT Brokerage services
academic research
knowledge intensive Business/org support
learning for/in the workplace
Type of resource
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HEFCE approach to date

• Foundation degrees
• Student employability
• Support for Sector Skills Councils (eg Skillset
  Screen Academies)
• HE Academy projects,
• CETLs
• Aims
• A broad concept of flexible lifelong learning,
  supporting the needs of the economy and society,
  the employer, and the learner
• Focus on workforce development learning for
  business improvement
• Address demand-side weakness, via shared
  benefits, shared costs
• HEIs working with their partners, connecting
  existing activity
• Local partnerships, fluid structures, bottom-up,
  avoiding additional bureaucracy

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• The role of workplace learning

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Integrating lifelong learning
Employer
Learner
Academic
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The Employee as learner

• Part time learner and part time worker or
  learning through work?
• Experiential learning and development
• Higher level skills
• Role of HE staff
• Access to academic resources
• Role of Employer
• Supervision in the workplace
• Client based project
• Co-funder

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Employer as Learner

• Ready made CPD
• Challenge from new ideas
• Access to library and other academic resources
• Access to academic consultants
• Research and Evaluation
• Knowledge exchange
• Innovation

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HE staff as learners

• Ready made CPD
• Update and regeneration of curriculum
• Real life project work
• Access to business and community resources
• Research and consultancy opportunities
• Knowledge exchange

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The economy of workplace learning

• Curriculum development
• Academic Tuition
• Supervision for experiential learning
• Assessment processes
• Accreditation processes
• Qualification outcomes

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De-schooling higher education?

• Who pays for what?
• What is valued and how is learning acknowledge
  and accredited?
• Are academic and workplace staff roles separate
  or integrated?
• How far can learning be integrated into life and
  still be visible as education?
• How is higher education distinguishable within
  lifelong learning?

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The Current Focus
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Barriers to greater HE role in workforce
development

• Structures (reg/national/sectoral) complexity,
  HE not embedded
• Language skills, training, FE focus
• Market failure weak demand
• Capacity in HE
• Communications HE comprehension and access
• Funding insufficient
• Quality assurance/staff development
• (CHERI-KPMG and KSA Partnership research into
  workplace learning 2006)

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Grant letter 2006

• Invites us to consider radical options
• Incentivise/fund provision that is partly or
  wholly employer-funded.
• Attract new sources of finance into HE
• Develop richer, more diverse range of
  provision
• Part-time study and short-cycle courses
• Curriculum that changes more quickly in response
  to learner and employer demand
• More diverse range of providers including
  reinforcement of the role of FE colleges in
  delivering HE and new private provision.

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Employer engagement - HEFCE response

• 2 stage strategy (web-site Nov 06)
• pilot stage test solutions, identify nature of
  demand and HEFCE role gain buy-in from partners
• drawing on findings - develop a shared strategy
  between HE and its partners

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HEFCE - key activities

• Pilot projects inviting institutions to meet
  workforce development needs and trial co-funding
• Higher level skills pathfinder projects 3
  regional pilots to embed Train to Gain into HE
  (RDA, RSP, HERA)
• HE Action Group bring together agencies (FDF
  QAA, LF, JISC, HEAcademy, Action on Access.
• Continue work with SSCs
• Review funding development of approach to
  funding achievement.
• Enable progression arrangements and support
  LLNs to deliver employer engagement
• Explore issues eg state aids and closed
  courses, public sector workforce and inter gov.
  relationships DfES/ DoH/DTI

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FundingReview of Block grant for
TeachingStrategic Development FundAdditional
Student NumbersComprehensive Spending Review