Student perspectives of partnership
in English higher education:
evaluating marketisation from the
street level
Claire Gray
Academic Partnerships
Plymouth University
Student perspectives of
partnership in English
higher education:
evaluating marketisation
from the street level
F/HE partnership – context
Franchising of university awards
The Dearing Report (1997) identified a ‘special
mission’ for colleges within the HE sector.
Foundation degree – growth
Widening Participation
Literature – contextual macro and micro –
margins of HE sector and perspectives of
practitioners. Theoretical – power, policy
implementation.
The street level - policy
implementation…
F/HE Partnerships from the bottom up
Policy/action
Policy Network
Analysis
Policy filters down…..but is also
created through interpretation and
implementation.
The Meso level is
conceptualised as the
work across both
partners to implement HE
HE and Marketisation
•
•
•
•
HE as a public good?
A quasi-market
Quality and mutuality
Consumer decision making
The Research
• Comparative case studies – 3 partnerships all well established in partnership work
• Partnership managers - interviews
• College staff – focus groups
• HE partnership students – e-survey and follow
up focus group
• Partnership documentation and publications –
documentary review
Partnership managers
…but I think it’s trying to think about a more
business to business relationship as well as a
quality assurance relationship with partners. So
that’s, kind of, a change now about how we
understand stuff.
Partnership managers
So if we’re doing, if we’ve got a very large partner where
we’re doing millions of pounds worth of business with that
partner, you know, we will say to a dean or head of school,
“You know, we are going to ask you to suck this up because it’s
in the benefit of the wider interests of the university because
this partner delivers massive amounts of WP (Widening
Participation) work for the university. So you’ve been difficult
over this particular award, you have to think more like a
university citizen as opposed to just your school.” However,
also there are times when, you know, we’re not seeking to
destabilise faculties or schools by encouraging partners to put
on awards that will cause competition to the university. So
again, we would, you know, the university reserves the right
to say, “No, you’re not having that.”
Partnership managers
… FE, I suspect, will go for anything that’s cheaper
and I’m afraid they won’t necessarily look at the
quality and other benefits that they get. And they
will argue with me, “Can’t afford it.” It’s as simple as
that. And, because it’s not just about students, it’s
about their staff …
College staff
…partnership’s changed so significantly hasn’t
it? When you go back and compare it to what it
is now, it’s more of a corporation, I don’t see it
as an actual partnership working collaboratively
in the same way as I think it used to be.
It’s less personal now.
Yeah, so impersonal but more probably
business efficient.
College staff
I was saying earlier that a lot of the
management meetings that I go to at the
university with the partner colleges, they’ve all
started to dissolve slowly because a lot of the
agenda items won’t be freely discussed now
between colleges because we’re all cut throat
and we’re not telling you what we’re doing and
we’re not to discuss that. So that support
network has actually started to break down.
College staff
I’ve got a Masters, got a degree, I’ve been
teaching here for six years, sent students down,
so it seems odd that it’s so difficult for me to
actually just speak to people who in theory are
my colleagues.
Student Survey (n=316)
• 73% (n= 230) were first generation to study HE
• 33% (n=105) stated that they did not consider study at a
university
• 67% (n=211) did consider this option.
• 79% (n=249) of the survey who did not consider study at
another college
• 21% (n=67) respondents positively considering other
college HE study.
• 58% (n=182) cited factors related to location and inability
to move or travel in their final decision or stated that the
college was the only location for the programme.
• 13% (n=40) indicated that they were unable to attend
university due to insufficient grades.
Student Survey (continued)
• 92% (n=290) of students that it was important to them
that their qualification was awarded by a university.
• 67% (n=212) could not name who the awarding body
would be on their final certificate at graduation.
• 91% (n=287) said that they did have access to
materials/resources provided by the partnership
university (high awareness of the link to the partner
university).
• So…from the students (n=212) who didn’t know who
the awarding body would be, 92% (n=194) of them
knew they had access to university resources.
Students
I think because we’re so separated from uni
even though we’re so close, you don’t have a
great deal to do with uni unless you’re using the
resources to do with it. So it’s, kind of like,
we’re still part of the college but we move in
between that actually being at uni or actually
being at college.
Students
And they said just do it that way, but I didn’t know
at the time that it was going to be based here. And
that’s why I got confused, well, was it actually a
university course? Because to me, like in my mind
back then, the college was, college was nothing to
do with higher education, but obviously now I know
that.
I was going to say that for me, as far as I was
concerned, my understanding of it was a course
organised and regulated by the university, just held
within the college.
Students
Survey respondents were asked if they ‘felt like
university students’ when at college.
63.6% (n=201) answered ‘no’
36.4% (n=115) responded positively.
Responses from the follow-up question were
coded at: Environment, Staff, Learning, Other.
Students
From being in the environment of being in a
sixth form college context. Staff in the HE
department do however treat you like a
university student.
The teaching is more personal at college - there
are no vast lecture theatres holding 100+
students.
Students
If someone asks me what I’m doing and they go,
“Oh, have you got uni today?” I’m like, “Yeah,
I’m going to uni tomorrow.” “What are you
doing?” “Foundation degree, that’s where I’m
doing it, in college.” And he goes, “So you’re a
college student?” And I’m, “No. I’m a university
student I’m just doing it at, on a different
campus.”
F/HE partnership – themes
• Marketised environment – this has affected
the structure of the partnerships.
• Challenges to WP and assumptions of student
choice.
• Competition and collaboration –
organisational challenges
• Identity and the college environment
F/HE partnership – analysis
• Policy implementation – bottom-up perspective –
Street Level Bureaucrats (Lipsky). Dealing with the
contradictions on the ground with students – squaring
organisational circles – translating HE into FE.
• Student experience and potentially identity – shaped
on the ground by staff.
• Power – not one way – college decision-making is the
most important determinant of what HE partnership
feels like…
• Choice of the student – not the reality for most WP
groups.
• Quality implications of transactional partnership.
The work of the street-level practitioners in
developing and maintaining a sense of HE
identity and academic collaboration is a pivotal
and undervalued facet of policy implementation
within collaborative partnerships.
References
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