Developments in work-based learning within UK higher ... - CiteSeerX

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

[Theme 6.]

Developments in work-based learning within UK higher education: the changing role of academics Author(s): Smith, Paul Senior Lecturer University of Teesside UK Teesside Business School, Middlesbrough TS1 3BA UK [email protected] Biography of the author Paul Smith is Head of Work-based Studies at the University of Teesside in the UK having previously worked in management and organisational development in the National Health Service. He completed his doctoral work on government policy and practice on work-based learning within British higher education. His main research, teaching and consultancy interests are in organisational learning, human resource development, leadership, and educational and business partnerships. Abstract The drive towards a human capital vision of higher education (HE) has come to dominate government policy in the UK. Policies have embraced the knowledge-based economy with work related programmes becoming an important part of the vision (DfES, 2003; HEFCE, 2006). The aim of this paper is to analyse one aspect of these changes focusing on the impact of work-based learning (WBL) programmes on academics within a sample of English universities. The WBL programmes referred to in the study are bespoke partnership programmes negotiated between the university, employer and student. By exposing the voices of the academics it will help to identify their changing role within the academy and some of the problems establishing WBL programmes. The themes emerging are changes to the traditional approaches to teaching and learning, a lack of awareness and interest in WBL programmes and resistance to change. Keywords Higher education, human capital, work-based learning, academics, universities

Introduction The policy objective of business playing a greater role in the higher education system has been a priority of successive British governments. These policies have embraced the ‘knowledge-based economy’ with work related programmes becoming an important part of the vision for British higher education (DfES, 2003; HEFCE, 2006a). Symes (2001) argues that there has been a repositioning of higher education within society which has been policy driven, with governments in the UK and Australia in particular, demanding that higher education modernizes itself and aligns itself to the economic needs of the contemporary nation state. The aim of this paper is to analyse one aspect of these changes focusing on the impact of work-based learning (WBL) programmes on academics within a sample of English universities.

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

The research data for the paper comes from interviews with ten academics at three post-1992 English universities involved in work-based learning programmes. With two of the universities, the interviewees were drawn from WBL programmes based within the Business School and the interviewees from the third university were from the School of Lifelong Learning and Education which has a centre that specialises in WBL programmes. The academics selected for interview were a senior manager within the school or university with responsibility for WBL; the Dean or Deputy Dean or their equivalent within each school; the WBL Programme Leader; and a WBL academic with teaching and management responsibilities related to WBL programmes. The analysis involves examining government policy and exploring the changing role of academics at the case study universities. Definitions WBL within higher education can be defined in a number of ways. Major (2002) argues that WBL is a planned programme of accredited learning in a higher education context, which can include undergraduate placements, distance learning programmes and sandwich courses. Boud, Solomon and Symes (2001: 4) define the term WBL as ‘being used to describe a class of university programmes that bring together universities and work organizations to create new learning opportunities in workplaces.’ They go on to define WBL programmes as sharing the following six characteristics: a partnership between an external organisation and an educational institution is specifically established to foster learning; learners involved are employees of, or are in some contractual relationship with an external organisation; the programme derives from the needs of the workplace and the learner rather than being controlled by the disciplinary curriculum because work is the curriculum; the start of the programme and educational level is established after learners have engaged in a process of recognition of competencies and identification of learning needs rather than relying on educational qualifications; a major element of WBL is that learning projects are undertaken in the workplace; and finally the educational institution assesses the learning outcomes of the negotiated programmes with reference to a framework of standards and levels which are transdisciplinary. In other words with ‘WBL degrees, work is quite literally the foundation of the curriculum…the activity from which learning arises and by which learning is defined’ (Boud and Symes, 2000: 21). WBL creates real challenges for higher education institutions as it offers an alternative vision to the traditional approaches to teaching and learning in universities as Boud and Solomon (2001: 225) point out: Work-based Learning as a pedagogical site challenges most of our conventional assumptions about teaching, learning, knowledge and curriculum. It is a disturbing practice – one that disturbs our understandings about our academic identity and its location. Indeed, work-based learning in higher education institutions disturbs most of the conventional binaries that have framed our academic work, including: organizational learning and university learning; performance outcomes and learning outcomes; organizational discourses and academic discourses; theory and practice; and disciplinary knowledge and workplace knowledge. The research focuses on one particular form of WBL, which places the workplace at the centre of the individual’s programme of study. The WBL programmes referred to in the study are bespoke partnership programmes negotiated between the university, employer and student. This approach is summed up by Brennan and Little (1996: 7):

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

Moreover, the aspect that distinguishes WBL from other processes of learning is the part that negotiation between individual, employer and higher education institution plays: negotiation between these three stakeholders in identifying achievable learning outcomes which are meaningful and challenging to the individual are relevant to the employer and have academic credibility; establishing, through negotiation, appropriate methods of and criteria for, assessment acceptable to all parties; establishing and maintaining, through negotiation, a supportive learning environment (based primarily in the workplace). The emergence of WBL The main thrust of government policy since the 1980s has emphasised the economic importance of education, how universities can work with industry and a market model of educational planning. At a global level Jarvis (2007: 147) argues that ‘Learning opportunities are commodities to be sold and educational organisations are being forced to adapt to a global capitalist learning market’. Williamson and Coffield (1997: 122) argue this has meant that universities have lost autonomy and are compelled to compete in a marketplace, potentially undermining their whole ethos: Forced into a market place in which the services they provide have to be tailored to the needs of powerful stakeholders in government or industry, universities could well lose their ability to question critically the society in which they function. The literature points to a number of consequences resulting from the drive for vocational education in a mass higher education system, such as the development of a new vocabulary for higher educational curricula. Terms such as transferable skills, enterprise, outcomes, capability and work-based learning emerged (Barnett, 1997); along with the establishment of an ideology that represents the perspectives of corporate capital (Barnett, 1994). With the dominant pursuit of vocational education, it can be questioned if universities are offering the diversity of courses to meet student demand or simply providing industry and commerce with the programmes of study that they require. These types of programmes could be viewed as narrow and short-term as technology and developments in business are subject to rapid change and therefore can become obsolete. The origins of WBL in higher education have emerged to some extent from a demand by students and employers for these new types of programmes. This has resulted in a rise of more vocationally based provision within universities, and a wider policy agenda whereby universities have been encouraged by government to forge alliances with business in the name of economic reform. In terms of recent developments in practice at UK universities the move towards more ‘workoriented’ universities has meant the divide between the university and the workplace in terms of learning is becoming increasingly narrow, as argued by Boud and Solomon (2001: 22-23) in their analysis of WBL programmes: In one shape or form these programmes acknowledge the workplace as a site of learning and as a source for making the curriculum more relevant. As such they are a signal of the blurring distinctions between the university and the workplace. They are symptomatic of the increasing legitimization of learning (and knowledge) outside the academy and a general repositioning of the academy vis-à-vis the external world.

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

The rise of WBL in the UK was, according to Portwood (2000a), the coming together of a realisation by employers that meeting the staff development needs of their employees in a structured way was becoming essential in the global economy and the recognition by universities of the potency of the work role within its organisational setting as the focus for learning. In other words there is a curriculum in the workplace as well as at the academy. Symes (2001) argues that the impetus for WBL stems from scepticism towards the outcomes of institutionalised learning as seen in the work of Illich and his deschooling thesis whereby ‘learning should be returned to its origins, and that individuals should learn from the world, and not, as occurs in schools and universities, about the world. WBL emphasises ‘from the world’ learning’ (Symes, 2001: 208). Human Capital Human Capital is a controversial topic which originated from the work of Schutz in the 1960s when it was used as a way of explaining the advantages of investing in education on a national scale with the goal to improve agricultural output. Human capital has received recognition as a simple device for re-labelling older ideas and as a way of looking at people management from an economic point of view. Schutz argued that human beings are more than capital: The mere thought of investment in human beings is offensive to some among us…to treat human beings as wealth that can be augmented by investment runs counter to deeply held values. It seems to reduce man, once again, to a mere material component, to something akin to property (Schutz, 1961 – cited in Jarvis with Griffin, 2003: 246) Jarvis (2007) places the concept in the context of twenty first century society by concurring with Schutz that it maybe regarded as morally questionable but inevitable in modern capitalist society as ‘instrumental rationality in its capitalist form relegates everything to its use-value for capital itself and as capitalism is the dominant ideology in contemporary society it has colonised not only our language but our thinking’ (p.121). Garrick (1999: 217) defines Human capital theory as involving ‘thinking in terms of human value (and performance) as a return on investment in a cost-to-benefit ratio…a way of viewing the preparation of workers to meet the labour requirements of a market economy.’ Human capital analysis draws a correlation between quantities of education and training, economic development and competitiveness, however, providing evidence for causal relationships is much more complex. King (2004) claims it is not easy to prove conclusively that investment in education is a cause of economic development but that it is empirically plausible that increased investment on higher education actually follows economic growth rather than causes it. The development of a flexible workforce has become essential to organisations ‘that have to keep adapting to the pressures that global capitalism exercises’ (Jarvis, 2007: 115) and universities are no exception as they try to come to terms with global changes. The drive towards a human capital vision of higher education has come to dominate government policy in the UK. The human capital vision of higher education has become a global phenomenon with the possible outcome being a few world universities and networks of existing universities that trade in the global market-place (Scott, 1998). Symes (2001: 205) highlights the fact that global policy making organisations are also embracing this vision of higher education: This thrust towards a human capital vision of higher education was based on the assumption that good though higher education was, its students were inadequately prepared for the workplace and were unable to put into practice what they had learnt at university…the same thrust had also come from global policymaking bodies such

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

as the OECD, which recognized the need for their membership states to invest in human capital if they were to take advantage of the knowledge-based economies which were beginning to emerge in the 1980s. Universities face real challenges if they are to meet this agenda as King (2004: 131) points out: Doubts have continued about the ability of the universities to reform their curricula and research orientations to more explicitly facilitate economic growth and to deliver what employers want and, in part at least, this helps to explain the growth of private and corporate universities in the 1990s The term human capital and the implications for using people as a resource is arguably morally questionable but as Jarvis (2007) argues it is inevitable given that we live in a capitalist society and it has started to dominate the political discourse and practices within higher education. The role of higher education should not be solely to serve the demands of the market economy but that a balance needs to be struck so that it serves the whole community not allowing business to dominate with the economic imperative being the overriding concern. As Taylor, Barr and Steele (2002: 162) argue the role of higher education in society should be about ‘…engaging the university with the whole community, and with the material reality of a deeply troubled world, bringing to bear rigorous intellectual enquiry into the whole range of areas of importance to human kind.’ The next sections will provide background information on the case study universities and identify the themes emerging in relation to the changing role of academics. The case study universities University A University A is a post-1992 university in the North of England and has a history of involvement in widening access initiatives. The WBL programmes at university A are translated into learning across the university via a ‘negotiated learning’ framework, which is an accredited framework allowing individuals to study a tailored programme drawing on core modules from the Centre for Lifelong Learning (CLL) and from across the university and in-company programmes. Programme details Historically, the Business School had been involved in a number of programmes with a strong WBL element, such as a Masters in Management Practice (MMP), Certificate in Management, and NVQ level 4/5 in Management. The MMP is indicative of the type of WBL programmes which had been offered, and, along with the MBA (Public Management) programme which superseded it, was the focus of our empirical research at university A. The WBL programmes have proved particularly attractive to supervisors and middle managers, whose entry qualifications are usually management or other professional programme certificates, rather than a first degree. Many of the participants have a number of years of management experience and use the Accreditation of Prior Learning (APEL) process to help them enter directly onto a later stage of the programme. The MMP programme has some distinctive features, as outlined in the course document:

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

The key differences between this model and the traditional approach to learning is that the organisation or individual takes greater responsibility for identifying learning and assessment opportunities; the learning takes place at a time, location and speed that is different from traditional courses; and there is more flexibility available to design specific learning outcomes that reflect the overall outcomes appropriate to the programme. A significant number of students on the MMP programme came from a local authority, and received named awards at the postgraduate certificate and postgraduate diploma levels. The award was replaced by the MBA (Public Management) in 2001- a qualification designed for public sector staff, but with a stronger emphasis on taught modules. This was developed following feedback from the local authority to the effect that that they wanted a modular programme which incorporated recent changes such as the ‘modernisation agenda’ within local government. University B University B is another post-1992 university, based in the South East of England. The focus of the programmes is on pedagogies that centre on the creativity and reflexivity of individuals within a work based context with WBL as a field of study. The corporate plan for 2004-08 for university B places great emphasis on the expansion of WBL as detailed in the following extract: While we shall maintain our commitment to widening participation and to serving the higher education needs of our local communities, we shall build on our emerging strengths by expanding substantially places for postgraduate, international and workbased students in London and, increasingly, around the world. Programme details The WBL programmes offered by the Centre at University B are built around three stages: learning review and planning, project design, and project implementation. The first stage involves an evaluation of prior learning called ‘Recognition and Accreditation of Learning’; the second part, ‘Planning Work Based Learning’, involves the design of a personal WBL programme in negotiation with the student’s employer and the university, and leads to an individual learning agreement containing the proposed study plan. Stage Two centres around the design of a proposal for a real-life work-based project, and the third stage involves the implementation of the project in the workplace. This partnership approach to WBL is usually triggered by university accreditation activity, which involves an exploration of the forms of learning to be found in the organisation, and how they might be systematically quantified and used within the programme. The aim here is to explore how an existing valuation framework can be used to build a customised programme, rather than forcing change on the employer. The study focused on the public sector MA programme where students could negotiate their degree title. The majority are middle managers or above, and most of them have previously studied for academic qualifications such as a management certificate or first degree, and have relevant prior learning.

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

University C University C is an ex-Polytechnic based in the South of England, and has a long history of providing WBL programmes across the university. The university has a cross-School ‘Partnership Programme’, which is offered on a part-time basis to individuals in employment, and was described by the Business School’s Business Development Director as ‘design your own degree’. Following an accreditation of prior learning assessment, the programme is developed as a partnership between the learner, the employer and the university. Typically, the programme leads to an undergraduate or postgraduate degree and learning is largely geared to the employer’s perceived needs. The university’s strategic plan for 2004-2008 places emphasis on it being: the first choice provider of skills development, enterprise, innovation, knowledge transfer and support for private, public and voluntary sector organisations of all sizes in our region and more widely in appropriate sectors of the economy. Programme details Our WBL programmes case study research was based in the Business School, and the focus of the research was the MSc Contracts Management, which was said to be typical of the School’s corporate WBL programme. The programme is targeted at junior and middle managers. The participating company owns the programme for three years, when it reverts back to the university, which can then develop it as it wishes. The MSc Contracts Management is an example of the Business School’s fast-track ‘Integrated Flexible Masters Programme’, involving an ‘Employee learning contract’, that is, a formalised agreement between the employee, the university and company mentor setting out the programme plan. The Business School’s programmes, such as those outlined above, are primarily designed for corporate clients, whereas the university-wide Partnership Programme is aimed at individuals in employment. The learning process on WBL programmes is managed via a learning contract with each student, which focuses upon work-based assignments. The contract is the vehicle for managing the quality of the learning process, and the contract has to be agreed between the three parties involved: the student, their workplace mentor, and the Course Tutor. The contract, according to the Associate Dean at the School: is a measurable tool, which can be used to see whether the programme is meeting the needs of the student. The learning contract is viewed as a living document because things can change rapidly and the contract needs to be dynamic so it can meet changed priorities at work. The learning contract acts, in effect, as a tracking document for the whole WBL process, so, in the view of the staff we interviewed, flexibility needs to be built in, as employers would object to a system that was too rigid. Research findings Resistance The theme of resistance emerged from interviews at all the universities and came in three main forms: academics perceiving WBL as a watering down of intellect and standards, WBL seen as taking students from other disciplines, and reluctance to get involved in WBL programmes due to a lack of incentives. The perceived threat of WBL taking students from academic disciplines was identified as a form of resistance by a number of the academics interviewed. For university A, the resistance is linked to the difficulties associated with the poor relationship between the CLL and

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

the academic schools. The lack of communication breeds fear and resentment in the university that the CLL is taking their students and thus resources. The Head of Research at university B places the situation in the context of what she describes as ‘the current economic situation in higher education’, and concedes that WBL could be seen as poaching students from other academic disciplines and a threat to academic standards: Another form of resistance is where other academics see work-based learning in its transdisciplinary mode being a watering down of intellect, standards and of what higher education should stand for, and I think this university encounters that as much as anyone. The Director of the Centre at university B argues that WBL never takes students away from the academic disciplines because it is a very different path to go down. He identified another form of resistance from people who are sceptical about WBL as a field of study. He views these people as a group who ‘never really wanted to work with us.’ At university C, two academics highlighted the lack of incentives for staff to get involved in WBL programmes with changes to calculating workloads of staff no longer encouraging involvement, as the WBL lecturer explains: Well without being too political, there is internal resistance at the moment because we do have differences of opinion and a lot of this is down to work constraints and work load issues. The research data points to resistance to WBL programmes coming in many different forms. These range from practical issues impacting on the motivation of academics to get involved, such as lack of financial incentives, or more fundamental issues, such as political opposition to what has been called ‘academic capitalism’ (Taylor, Barr and Steele, 2002: 137). For WBL to move from being a minority provision into a more mainstream activity will require a significant step change and government policy needs to be seen in this context. As well as resistance, there are also barriers to the growth of WBL identified by the academics: government funding not taking account of WBL; WBL programmes being labour intensive and expensive to run; difficulties providing the flexibility needed by WBL students; and a lack of management support. For the Business Development Director at university C, government funding does not take account of WBL and she argues that the government assumes that what all academics do is teach and therefore all the funding is geared to students, teaching hours and fulltime equivalent students. This point was re-inforced by the Programme Leader at university C who felt that it was pushing the boundaries being involved with WBL programmes yet the system offered little support: ‘We don’t see HEFCE and QAA as our friends, we see them reinforcing and ossifying the current system.’ For the academics at university C, there is a lack of flexibility in the funding system hindering developments in WBL programmes. The Business Development Director pointed out that demand is outstripping supply, so resources need to be identified if this area is to grow. Lack of awareness/interest in the wider academic community Our case study findings point to a strong message coming from all three universities in the study: there is a general lack of awareness of WBL developments amongst academic staff. At university C, the Business Development Director said that ‘two thirds of the Business School staff would not know much about the WBL programmes the School offers’. Even at university B, which has a

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

Centre specialising in WBL programmes, the Head of Research commented that ‘it had taken ten years for people to start to notice that the Centre exists’. WBL programmes within British HE form a minority of the overall provision, with only a small number of academics contributing to them. It is also worth noting that ‘learner in the workplace’ programmes demand a particular set of skills which may be in short supply in HE. As the CHERI/KPMG report (HEFCE, 2006b: 33) noted: …the nature and extent of negotiation needed between the higher education provider, the learner and the employer to create an acceptable programme requires a set of skills which ‘traditional’ academics may not possess. The complex brokerage skills required to establish an agreed programme of activities and provide ongoing support to the learner provide but one example. It is important to emphasise that the comments above came from staff at universities which have an established reputation for WBL provision, implying that there may well be even less awareness and interest at other universities which have not put the same level of attention and resources into such programmes. Our findings thus concur with those of Reeve and Gallacher (2003: 202), who have argued in their study of WBL partnership programmes: It would appear that WBL developments within universities in the UK are still limited and marginal. There are clearly some examples of UK institutions where WBL has become a significant form of provision, and Middlesex University and Portsmouth University are often quoted in this context. However elsewhere in the UK, even in the new post ’92 university sector which emerged out of the more vocationally oriented polytechnics, there is little evidence that WBL has become a major form of provision in many universities. The Higher Education Academy study of work-based learning practice in UK HE found that (2006: 16): Perceptions of work-based learning show that it is still seen by some as belonging to more vocationally oriented institutions. It is very much a contested area felt by many to be the preserve of particular disciplines and outside this it tends to be a bit of a ‘cottage industry’ supported by enthusiasts. This lack of awareness of WBL is indicative of how WBL has failed to have any significant impact other than in highly localised, circumscribed cases. In the HE institutions where WBL programmes are established there is evidence that they have had to learn new practices in difficult circumstances because of a lack of fit and interest in the wider academic community. Changes to teaching and learning The development of WBL programmes are changing the traditional approaches to teaching and learning in a number of ways: creation of flexible delivery and recognition that not everybody can fit within the standard programme; flexibility in assessments encouraging students to design their own programme; a strong emphasis on APEL to gain academic credit for completed learning; and an acceptance that the partners involved in the programme have academic involvement. An example of the flexible delivery from university A was that students could simply complete a couple of modules from a programme and gain a university certificate for personal and professional development. This approach suits the individual who wants a taster or refresher and

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

cannot commit to a full programme. The flexibility in assessments that students are given are reflected in the programme at university A: I think we have become reasonably clever in the way in which we design our assignments, not all of them, but most of them. I think that our assessment encourages the ability within the student to design their programme to meet their own needs by the flexibility they have in the assessment (WBL academic, university A). The growth of APEL in helping students gain academic credit has a long history but is now starting to be more widely recognised and is being used in innovative ways, as highlighted at university B: On their CV it gives you a chronology of their roles and you look at these roles to examine what is the learning and what are the learning outcomes. So people begin gradually to start this longitudinal process where they look across the CV for themes, so there might be a feeling of a particular theme of managing people for example, which runs across a number of their roles. A person might have an area of learning that they would want to import into management. What they are doing is putting forward to us an articulate claim for the learning they have achieved and they are trying to tell us about the level they were at and what kind of responsibilities it involves (Curriculum Leader university B). For many of the students at university B, the APEL process is beneficial but there are still problems in terms of wider recognition for achievements using the APEL process and acceptability at other higher education institutions. Until there is a nationwide system of credit transfer then there will always be problems in terms of applying it to student learning. Barriers to change A number of barriers to change were identified: intensity of block delivery and problems in terms of preparation and attendance; lack of face to face contact; and problems of consistency in the quality of programme delivered. An example of a barrier is at university A, where the knowledge input is delivered at the university over a two-day period, which means it is very intense, and can cause problems. This helps students with managing their workload in employment but there is a large amount of material to cover in a short space of time, which can be too much for some students. There were concerns about consistency, as the WBL academic at university A argues: The other problem is delivering high quality input in what is seen as a masters level academic reflective course in a much shorter space of time and trying to achieve that degree of consistency across this programme and other programmes where people are getting similar awards or achieving similar learning outcomes. The roots of many of these problems are linked to the organisational culture within higher education, with many of the values and practices locked in and difficult to break down. Many

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

academics are reluctant to change working practices such as block delivery of programmes, because they see it as impacting on their ability to carry out research and disrupt their working patterns. At university A, the Business School is constrained by a delivery model based on the lecture and tutorial, which makes it difficult to organise block release programmes, as the WBL academic argues, ‘It might be different if we could extend the responsibilities of the academics but they do not necessarily have the time to do two days simply because that is the way the employer wants it delivered.’

Conclusions The research findings identify apathy and resistance to WBL on the behalf of university academic staff who are not involved in WBL (the majority) -the ‘non-converts’, one might say, and the range of constraints which operate at the local university level. Government policy towards HE since the 1980s has emphasised the employability of graduate students and HE’s contribution to economic competitiveness. Combined with the increasing role of central government in HE through directing funding, the introduction of an enhanced inspection/quality assurance regime, and a stronger managerial orientation, it can be argued that British universities have been through some of the most dramatic changes that have occurred in the history of higher education (Symes, 2001). The result appears to be that many academics have been pushed into a corner where they feel that the only way to deal with such challenges to their autonomy and professional ethics is to resist developments such as WBL. In exploring policy and practice in relation to WBL and analysing its relationship with human capital theory then there is clear evidence that consecutive UK Governments have continued with policies supporting closer ties between education and the business sector, which Coffield (2000: 28) has described as ‘a skills growth model allied to a learning market’. Recent policy developments have re-inforced these messages in, for example, the government strategy for higher education (DfES, 2003), which places emphasis on building links between business and higher education through funding mechanisms and employment-based qualifications such as Foundation degrees. The government objectives that underlie these developments are part of a wider political discourse that justifies developments in education in narrow economic terms. These objectives will ultimately force universities to make strategic choices in respect of their relations with commerce and industry. These programmes are in many ways unique and at the leading edge of developments in knowledge production, yet remain at the periphery of developments within higher education. If WBL programmes at postgraduate level are not taking hold within HE, then this raises serious doubts about policy and practice across the whole HE sector, as it is arguably at the postgraduate level that there is the best chance of this occurring. It is important to note that HEFCE recognises from its latest strategy document (HEFCE, 2006a) that more needs to be done: reference is made to its need to explore incentives for employer-funded HE in order to address the ‘employer engagement agenda’, and to strengthen the links between HE and employers, and promote opportunities for WBL and lifelong learning. It has set a target for the proportion of HEIs reporting high levels of employer engagement to increase to 80% by 2009. The research points to a lack of organizational fit for WBL programmes in areas such as standard teaching delivery patterns, workload models and government funding. These factors, combined with organizational constraints go some way to explaining the limited impact that WBL programmers are having and the real changes faced by academics involved.

“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

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“Insightful Encounters - Regional Development and Practice–Based Learning” Conference on Regional Development and Innovation Processes March 5th-7th, 2008, Porvoo - Borgå, Finland

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