EMPLOYER ENGAGEMENT
THE COMMONWEALTH CLUB
13 MAY 2009
How far should universities go to meet the
needs of employers?
Organised by:
In partnership with:
Sponsored by:
David Sweeney
HEFCE
Organised by:
In partnership with:
Sponsored by:
Welcome slide
Making sure universities meet the
needs of employers
13 May 2009
David Sweeney
Director
Research, Innovation and Skills
Overview of talk
• HEFCE strategy and how the HE sector is
responding:
– 3rd stream
– Skills
– Responding to the recession
Higher education meeting the
needs of employers – some
context
• Long history of HE meeting employer
needs
• Drivers for Government intervention
– Lambert review of business-university
collaboration
– Science and innovation investment framework
– Sainsbury’s review of science and innovation
– Leitch review of skills
• Considerable investment in HE
infrastructure
Evidence of HE meeting the
needs of employers
• Higher education – Business and Community
Interaction Survey (HEBCIS)
– Overall income from employers/business is increasing
– HE infrastructure is increasingly directed towards
meeting employer needs
• Examples of HE-Business integration
– Over one third of members on HEIs’ governing bodies
are from business
– Employers are actively involved in curriculum
development across 80% of HEIs
• CBI’s ‘Stepping Higher’ report
• ‘Standing together – helping businesses in the
HEBCIS 2006-07
Total income by partner 2003-2007
(real terms)
HEBCIS 2006-07
Income by activity and partner
2006-07
HEBCIS 2006-07
Selected HE-BCI income streams
2003-2007 (real terms)
HEBCIS 2006-07
Selected infrastructure
indicators 2000-2008
HEFCE’s ‘third stream’ strategy
• Increasing the contribution that HE can
make to developing the economy and
society
• Investing in HE infrastructure though the
Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
– to increase the impact of the ‘knowledge
base’
• Providing evidence on the progress and
benefits of HE’s contribution to the
economy and society
HEIF 4 – Scope of third stream
funding
• Support for the Third Stream agenda since 1999
leading to Higher Education Innovation Fund
(HEIF4) allocation of £400 million in 2008-2011
(more than £1bn in total).
• Support and develop a broad range of
engagements
Not only private sector – also public sector and
charities, community groups etc
• Through knowledge and expertise exchange
• Enterprise activities - result in economic and
social value
Skills policy - delivering
change for the long term – our
goals for 2008-11
•
•
•
Transformational development of the HE
sector aiming for a third or more of English HE
providers involved in shared investment
workforce development with employers
35,000 additional entrants to HE, backed by
employer investment alongside public funding
Increase Foundation Degree enrolments to at
least 100,000 by 2010
Employer Engagement Fund progress
• £148 million across 60 lead universities
and FE Colleges from 2008-09
• 10,700 new co-funded places in 08/09;
18,700 in 09/10
• 30% average rate of employer cofunding – rising to 50% by 2010/11
• Supporting long term strategic relations
with employers
Good progress but challenges
remain
• Evaluation of 3rd stream
– Supply-side and demand-side barriers
continue to constrain knowledge exchange
interactions
• CBI skills survey
– Barriers were reported that constrain greater
engagement between universities and
business
• CFE research
– The untapped market for skills
Changing economic circumstances
• Increased unemployment
• Large employers (e.g. car companies)
– Shrinking or halting production
– Desire to hold onto a skilled workforce
• Graduate employment more challenging
• Fight for survival (SMEs)
HEFCE’s Economic Challenge
Investment Fund (ECIF)
• Short-term, flexible funding to respond to
local individual and business needs in the
downturn
• 78 proposals, £28 million funding:
– 21 collaborative
– 57 single institution
• Leveraging £32 million matched funding
• Over 51,000 people and 11,000
businesses being supported April 2009 to
Sept 2010
Examples of ECIF funded activities
• Increased unemployment
– Cranfield University – Retraining unemployed STEMqualified professionals to work in other sectors
• Large employers
– University of Hull - Short courses and workshops in
key manufacturing skills
• Graduate employment
– University of Cumbria – IAG service to 500
unemployed and ‘at risk’ graduates
• SMEs
– University of Exeter – A student and graduate task
force employed by the university to support SME
Summary
• Considerable investment in key areas in
HE to address the needs of
employers/businesses
• Diversity of responses across HE that
reflects:
– Types of employers
– Sectors of the economy
– Diverse HEI expertise and missions
• Dynamic period of development and
significant opportunities
• To be successful requires increased
What does the future hold?
• Tighter fiscal environment
• A greater emphasis on employers
and individuals:
– Taking responsibility for their own
needs
– Driving demand for higher level skills
• The HE sector needs to deliver
• And needs to be seen to deliver
Derek Longhurst
fdf
Organised by:
In partnership with:
Sponsored by:
Derek Longhurst
Chief Executive
d.longhurst@fdf.ac.uk
www.fdf.ac.uk
Work-based learning
‘Authentic and innovative work-based learning is an
integral part of Foundation Degrees and their design.
It enables learners to take on appropriate role(s)
within the workplace, giving them the opportunity to
learn and apply the skills and knowledge they have
acquired as an integral element of the programme. It
involves the development of higher level learning
within both institution and the workplace. It should be
a two-way process… Work-based learning requires
the identification and achievement of defined and
related learning outcomes’.
Foundation Degree Qualification Benchmark (QAA 2004) emphases added
Principles
•
•
•
•
•
Integration: defined outcomes
Engagement with workplace
Knowledge and skills
Two-way process
Level
Leitch Review of Skills
3.26 ‘A more highly-skilled labour force will enable
businesses to innovate further, taking advantage of
new technologies and ways of working in order to
improve productivity and capture new markets.’
Prosperity for all in the global economy – world class skills (2006)
A challenge for higher education
to address preparation for :
Jobs that don’t yet exist…
…using technologies that haven’t been
invented…
…to solve problems we don’t even know are
problems yet
Leitch Review of Skills
‘In the 21st Century, our natural reserve is our
people – and their potential is both untapped
and vast. Skills will unlock that potential. The
prize for our country will be enormous – higher
productivity, the creation of wealth and social
justice.’
Prosperity for all in the global economy – world class skills (2006)
Leitch Review of Skills
3.56 ‘Concentrating too much on younger
age groups could create further longer term
problems for the amount and the use of high
level skills in our workforce…’
Prosperity for all in the global economy – world class skills (2006)
Leitch Review of Skills
‘Skills are a key driver of fairness; unequal
access to skills has contributed to relatively
high rates of child poverty and income
inequality in the UK. There are clear links
between skills and wider social outcomes, such
as health, crime and social cohesion.’
Prosperity for all in the global economy – world class skills (2006)
A political economy of high
skills formation
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Consensus
Competitive capacity
Capability
Coordination
Circulation
Cooperation
Closure
High Skills (Brown, Green and Lauder, 2005)
' To develop skill requires a good measure of
experiment and questioning: mechanical practice
seldom enables people to improve their skills. Too
often we imagine good work itself as success built,
economically and efficiently, upon success.
Developing skill is more arduous and erratic than
this...Most people have it in them to become good
craftsmen...Even if society does not reward people
who have made this effort as much as it should, in the
end, they can achieve a sense of self-worth.....'
Richard Sennett, The Guardian (2 February 2008)
Higher Education:
Professionals (Robert Reich)
• Abstraction (theorising and/or relating
empirical data to theory, and/or using
formulae, equations, models and metaphors)
• System thinking (see the part in the context of
the whole)
• Experimentation (intuitively or analytically)
• Collaboration (involving communication and
team-working skills)
Employability: What It Is - What It Is Not (Mantz Yorke, 2004)
What is work-based learning for
employers?
• Problem-based learning
• Innovative capacity
• Autonomy, motivation and self-management
• Team work and communication
• Personal and organisational performance
Principles of work-based
learning
•
•
•
•
Workplace learning: context and curriculum
Transdisciplinary knowledge
Currency and level
Employee-centred or trainee employee
centred
• Flexibility in relation to the work and
learning environment
• Responsiveness
Purposes of work-based
learning
•
•
•
•
Theorising practice/practising theory
Evaluative thinking
Systems thinking
Personal, Professional and intellectual
development
• Employability competence in context
Institutional ‘barriers’ to workbased learning
Senior Management strategy
Staff capability
Lack of cross-institutional
debate (silo-sitis)
Assessment practice – AP[E]L
Lack of responsiveness and
long lead times
Lack of staff
development
strategy
Lack of understanding of
clients/markets
Risk, collaboration and inappropriate
funding models
National growth in Foundation
degree student numbers
Number of Fd students
100,000
87,339
90,000
71,999
80,000
70,000
60,580
60,000
46,779
50,000
37,819
40,000
23,945
30,000
20,000
10,000
12,310
4,320
0
2001-02
2002-03
2003-04
2004-05
2005-06
Academic year
2006-07
2007-08
2008-09
Who teaches Foundation
degree students?
Environment Agency
• In 2003 identified a shortage of skilled
Technician Engineers
• Developed a Foundation degree as part of a
formal training scheme for new recruits
• Trainees based throughout the UK –
Foundation degree delivered by e-learning
and residential blocks
• Foundation degree addresses skills shortage
and produces graduates that ‘hit the ground
running’
Foundation degree students:
challenging our preconceptions?
“I didn’t know what a Foundation degree was. If
I’d know about this before I would not have
done my degree. This opportunity is too good
to be missed”
“Doing a Foundation degree is very different to
doing a degree. I spend most of my time in a
work environment…the Foundation degree is
more intense and it is hard work…but I’m
much more motivated than I was when I did
my degree”
“I learn something new from every aspect of the
degree. I am more confident in my abilities and
more commercially aware of the wider retail
industry.”
Alex Cave, Duty Manager at Tesco
“I feel sure that the degree will improve my
career prospects and open up new
opportunities. I used to suffer from a lack of
confidence – I feel that the course has now
given me much more confidence in my abilities
and I take on new challenges with a more ‘can
do’ attitude.”
Kathy Coveney, Tesco Compliance Manager
The autonomy of institutions
'...HEIs are very ambivalent about autonomy. We pay
excessive lip service to the idea but we are also
hooked on earmarked funding. Lots of university
leaders won't do what they know they should unless,
and until, there is a special fund to support it. And
they stop as soon as the so-called initiative ends.
This can lead to a very curious inversion of
institutional priorities. The thing that we assume to
be most important becomes not the first but the last
call on our institutional resources.'
Sir David Watson, Who owns the university?, QAA Briefing Paper - Quality
Matters, November 2008