Transcript Changing financial environments: an assessment framework

Growing your own graduates:
opportunities and challenges for flexible
higher education in the new funding
environment
Dr. Liz Marr, Centre for Inclusion and Curriculum
Kevin Streater, Business Development Unit
The Open University
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Contents
• Context
• Role and purpose of HE in 21st Century
• HE and business
– RPL
– Higher Apprenticeships
• Case study – IT sector
• Gaps and Challenges
• Conclusions
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Context
•
•
•
•
•
Turbulence
Gulf of mutual incomprehension
Treasury at the heart of the system
Creative gales of destruction
Disjunctures:
– Stem /humanities
– Training/education
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Role and Purpose of Universities in the 21st
Century
• Influenced by:
– Policy
– Technology
– Demography
– Plurality of provision
– Expectations of Students
– Stratification
• (amongst other things…)
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The role of Universities
• There is a growing realisation ‘of the central role of universities in providing
high level skills, a world class research base and a culture of inquiry and
innovation. Universities are an essential part of the supply change to
business – a supply chain that has the capability to support business growth
and therefore economic prosperity’. Sir Tim Wilson, February 2012
• Universities are ‘perhaps the single most important institutional medium for
conserving, understanding, extending and handing on to subsequent
generations the intellectual scientific and artistic heritage of mankind’.
Stefan Collini, 2012
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Higher Education and Social goods
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HEI’s and Business – bridging the gap
Corporate
Learning
Buyers
Corporate
Requirements of a
Learning Provider
are:
• Quality
• Speed
• Dependability
• Flexibility
• Cost
Intermediaries
Intermediaries are
needed to buffer between
these two domains.
These can include:
• APEL/RPL/APL
• Use of training
providers as partners.
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Universities
Priorities for a
University as a
Learning Provider
are:
• Teaching
• Learning
• Quality
• Research
RPL – All roads can lead to Rome
•
•
•
•
Credit transfer
Direct entry
APEL/APL
Accreditation of Employer &
Sectoral Training and CPD
• Accreditation of Industry
Certificated
• Challenge Exams
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Higher Apprenticeships
1. Significant new development in the
higher learning landscape
2. Provides a structure to facilitate the
integration of vocational and
knowledge based higher education
with higher level critical reflection
and autonomous decision making
skills
3. Fully supports work-based learning
concepts
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Case Study – IT Sector
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Skills Framework for the Information Age
What is SFIA?
1. A common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to
develop effective Information Systems (IS) making use of Information
Communications Technologies (ICT).
2. A simple, logical two-dimensional framework consisting of areas of work on
one axis and levels of responsibility on the other.
3. A common language and a sensible, logical structure that can be adapted to
the training and development needs of a very wide range of businesses.
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Skills Framework for the Information Age
What is SFIA?
1. A common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to
develop effective Information Systems (IS) making use of Information
Communications Technologies (ICT).
2. A simple, logical two-dimensional framework consisting of areas of work on
one axis and levels of responsibility on the other.
3. A common language and a sensible, logical structure that can be adapted to
the training and development needs of a very wide range of businesses.
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SFIA Levels
A central component of SFIA are the level descriptors. Each level is fully
described in its own right under each of these four headings:




Autonomy
Influence
Complexity
Business Skills
Each level has a short tag that summarises the essence of the level, and a full
generic definition that is independent of the skills definitions.
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Seddon 2005
•
Highlights the main barriers to the progression of
Advanced Apprentices to higher education, including:
1. Ignorance as to the composition and status of the
frameworks associated with apprenticeships
2. The quantum change in teaching/learning
experienced by vocational learners in HE (shift
towards autonomous learning, discursive
assessment and disconnect with the work-setting.
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Why the “quantum change”?
• Quite different learning experiences at QCF Level 3 (SFIA Level 2) and QCF
Level 4 (SFIA Level 3)
• QCF Level 3:
– Solving of defined
problems
– Limited autonomy
– Recognisable levels of
supervision and directed
activity
– Assessment of
procedural activity
• QCF/FHEQ Level 4
onwards:
– Solving of complex
problems which might
be solution-free
– Need to orient in
complex/competing
epistemological systems
– Discursive assessment
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A need for reflection…
• There’s a need to recognise the challenges for students in making this
transition
• Important to also consider why students are making the transition…
– Fundamentally it’s about employability (and personal development?)
• That being the case we need to consider the nature of two ecologies
Higher Education
IT Professionals
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How the ecologies compare…
• Higher Education
– Governed by subject
benchmarks and
qualification
frameworks
– Aims to develop
self-directed
learners with
transferable skills
suited to
employment
• IT Professionals
– Employment is
framed in terms of
SFIA
– Geared towards the
development of
tomorrow’s IT
Professionals
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Future Higher Apprenticeship Qualification Framework
L3 Advanced Apprenticeship
or equivalent level qualification
Mentoring Support
Transition Support
Competency Development
Functional/Key Skills
Employee Rights & Responsibilities
Personal Learning
Level 4 HE credit recognition
New Module
Foundation
Degree
Additional Knowledge (level 4 credit)
Existing Modules
Work Based Learning (level 4 credit)
New Module
Additional Knowledge (level 5 credit)
Existing Modules
Honours Degree
Masters Degree
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Postgraduate Certificate in Advanced
Professional Practice
OU content
150 hours
Readings and Assessment around learning
and development
150 hours
Three Units
of 30 Hours
CPD
90 hours
30 credits – 6 months
30 credits – 6 months
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60 points
Open degree
Readings and Assessment around taking new
knowledge back into practice
50 hours
Recognised Training Provision
from sector provider.
Reflective log
70 hours
B..834 – Improving your Practice
(Module 2)
Additional related CPD
90 hours
(up to 30 hours can be from other
defined sources)
U..810 – Continuing Professional Development in
Practice (Module 1)
OR
Potential 60
points named
UG degree
(content
dependant)
OR
300 hours MBA
elective
OR
Potential
60 points
Masters (content
dependant)
The Gap(s) and Challenges
•
•
•
•
•
•
Conceptual
Attitudinal
Financial
Language
Using RPL
The link between the practical and the theoretical
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Conclusion
English government policy is heavily focused on the economic returns of
investment in higher education for individuals and for the state and there is a
considerable risk of a wider chasm emerging between ‘education’ for one
section of society and ‘training’ for the rest. Apart from the moral and ethical
issues this raises , the development of higher level practical skills without the
ability to critically reflect or make autonomous decisions about their deployment
can severely limit their effectiveness and potential to enhance economic
performance. Economic benefit cannot be divorced from social good.
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