BERA

Edinburgh 11th-13th September 2003

Employer and Needs-Led Curriculum Planning in Higher Education: A Cross-sector case study of foundation degree development

Rosalind Foskett

University of Southampton,

School of Education

Abstract

The emergence of Foundation Degree programmes in response to employer workforce development needs provides a rich environment for the study of curriculum innovation in the context of cross-sector partnerships in post-compulsory education. This paper presents the findings of a case study of curriculum planning of three foundation degree programmes developed by consortia involving employer groups in both the private and public sectors, six further education colleges, and the University of Southampton. All three sectors shared a common goal of widening participation, yet contrasts in the range of other aims that each sought from this initiative generated significant challenges to the curriculum developers.

This study draws on evidence from documentary analysis, participant observation, and informal interviews of the major stakeholders over a period of two years. This paper highlights the barriers to effective curriculum change within partnership contexts and the benefits which accrue.

1. Introduction

Like any other area of social activity, education goes through phases of change which fundamentally affect how it operates. Priorities for change may be intrinsic as new and better ways of doing things are sought in response to some perceived need of the practitioners. Alternatively, the priorities may be extrinsic as the stakeholders within society impose content, methods or structures which they perceive will ‘improve’ the education process. This paper looks at one element that is affecting curriculum change in higher education – the pressure for institutions to work within collaborative partnerships to develop appropriate curriculum in line with government priorities for change. Two key policies will provide the focus for this: the pledge that the government has made to widen participation in higher education and the desire to make the sector work more closely with business to assist workforce development and modernisation.

The emergence of foundation degree programmes in response to employer workforce development needs provides a rich but, as yet, poorly researched environment for the study of curriculum innovation in the context of cross sector partnerships in post-compulsory education. This paper presents some initial findings from curriculum planning in the context of three foundation degree programmes developed by consortia involving employer groups in both the public and private sector, six further education colleges and the University of Southampton. All three examples involved partners who shared a common goal of widening participation, yet there were clear differences in the other aims that each sought to achieve.

The process of curriculum development within the new paradigm of foundation degrees provides particular challenges – not least due to the nature of collaboration and partnership. This paper highlights some of the barriers to effective curriculum change within partnership contexts, such as cultural disparities and the diversity of expectations between the stakeholders. It also considers some of the benefits which can accrue. Many of these are documented in the recent literature (for example Barden, 1993; Cantor, 1995; Trim, 2001). The admixture of perspectives, and the variety of problem-solving approaches used by the different partners in their various professional contexts, brings both tensions and unpredicted creativity to the shaping of the emergent curriculum. In this way the needs of a diverse student body and the employers can be met successfully, and each of the sectors gains insights into curriculum possibilities that can be transferred to new workplace learning contexts.

2. Methodology

This study draws on evidence from documentary analysis, participant observation and informal interviews of the major stakeholders over a period of two years to begin to identify the processes involved in developing a needs-led curriculum. The documents consulted included validation documents, papers prepared for accreditation visits to partner further education colleges (FECs), minutes of meetings, Memorandum of Agreements and correspondence between partners. The author was involved in both developments as a senior member of staff within the faculty and was able to observe the curriculum development process as it unfolded. Formal and informal evaluations took place during the development phase and after validation.

In addition, conversations and informal interviews with the major stakeholders have allowed evidence to be collected from different perspectives within the consortia. This study has been in preparation for a much larger and more formal study of curriculum development in collaborative partnerships involving higher education which is on-going.

3. The policy context

The development of foundation degrees can be tracked back some way in Government thinking and materialised as an articulated proposal in the Report of the National Committee of Inquiry in Higher Education (Dearing, 1997) which paved the way for more diversity in the undergraduate curriculum. Although the Report recognised the value of the single honours degree and the part it has in developing specialism, it also suggested the need for a greater variety of programmes and key skills development in curricula including at higher education level. The vocationalism, already adopted within the 16-19 curriculum, was signalled as an area for development in higher education. Recommendation 18 of the report, for example, encouraged ‘institutions to identify opportunities to increase the extent to which programmes help students to become familiar with work, and help them reflect on such experience’ (Dearing, 1997, Summary Report, p 44). Higher Education has been seeking ways of generating income to reduce dependence on HEFC funding. As other authors have pointed out, HEIs have seen the potential of collaborative relationships as one way of realising the value of their course provision and to enhance recruitment of students, particularly from non-traditional backgrounds (Smith and Bocock, 1999; Hodson and Thomas, 2001).

From the point of publication of the Dearing Report until the present day, HE has stayed in the political reforming spotlight. In November 1997, the Fryer Report Learning for the Twenty-First Century was published by the National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning. This brought together much of the thinking on lifelong learning that had occurred since the publication of the Report of the Commission on Social Justice in 1994 (CSJ, 1994). Widening participation was seen as an essential requirement for encouraging a culture of lifelong learning in Britain and a driver for economic advance. The report stressed the importance of getting a higher proportion of the population to the starting line for learning and to ensure, once they had taken the first steps, that the barriers to learning were removed to enable progression. Workplace learning was identified as one of the areas for development including the provision for people to up-date their skills. The Fryer Report went on to suggest that employers should provide modern apprenticeships and employee development schemes; TECs ‘should offer support through improved needs and labour market analysis and the provision of focussed programmes of learning’ (Fryer, 1997, para 1.16); and the University for Industry (UfI) should assist by identifying learning gaps, brokering learning partnerships and using the new technologies to take learning to the learners. Point 6 of the report stresses the importance of collaboration and partnership in making these changes and, although higher education wasn’t specified, the Report recommended the development of strategic partnerships of stakeholders at regional and local level.

The National Skills Task Force, set up in 1998, made its Final Report, Delivering Skills for All, in 1999 and the response from the Secretary of State, Opportunity for All: skills for the new economy, was published in 2000. The aim of this work was to ensure that Britain had the skills it needed to ‘sustain high levels of employment, compete effectively in the global market place and provide opportunity for all’ (DfEE, 2001, p 4). Although much of the agenda is aimed at schools and further education, higher education changes are clearly signalled. The vision ‘is of a society where high skills, high rewards and access to education and training are open to everyone’ (DfEE, 2001, p 6). In this vision it is clear that widening participation and access to education through an inclusive service is a key part of the strategy. One of the main priorities in the report is to ‘open up a ladder of vocational opportunity for young people, offering parity of esteem with more academic study and progression to higher education’ (ibid, p 6). This is spelled out later in the report where the development of ‘new vocational foundation degrees’ (ibid, p 6) is seen as the natural development of a vocational qualifications framework which begins with vocational GCSEs (introduced in 2002), through vocational A levels (AVCEs, introduced in 2000) and on to Foundation Degrees (introduced 2000).

Much of the document stresses the importance of workforce development which is to be achieved by the then Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), working with the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the Regional Development Agency (RDA) and the National Training Organisations (NTOs), ensuring a strategic approach to skills development. It also advocates further development of the Modern Apprenticeship and Graduate Apprenticeship schemes. Higher Education is seen as an integral part of this vocational ladder and the need for greater links between higher education institutions (HEIs) and business receives special mention by the Secretary of State.

‘To complete our new vocational ladder of opportunity, I am committed to the modernisation of our higher education system. Many of our universities are already the envy of the world, offering high-quality academic and postgraduate study. But not enough are building the kind of bridges between the campus and employers, which could substantially improve on our levels of workforce skills, productivity and innovation. Responding to the Task Force's original conception of an associate degree, we introduced the new Foundation Degree.’ (DfEE, 2001, p 10)

Foundation degrees are seen as an important part of the strategy for a more vocationally relevant and accessible higher education curriculum. They are an example of government-led curriculum change and as such, they represent a major step towards the government’s intention that HE should play its part in delivering its vision. One key element of government policy is widening access to higher education courses for traditionally hard-to-reach students and collaborative partnerships between higher education and further education are seen as an important vehicle for achieving this (Smith and Bocock, 1999; Hodson and Thomas, 2001; Jones 2002). Foundation degrees are seen as intermediate qualifications addressing the skills gap at higher technician and associate professional level and they have to provide progression to honours degrees and further professional qualifications. The purpose of foundation degrees is to:

  • equip students with the combination of technical skills, academic knowledge and transferable skills demanded by employers;
  • provide a valued qualification in its own right;
  • provide a qualification which will enable students to progress to higher academic and professional qualifications on the ladder of lifelong learning;
  • combat social exclusion by providing a route into HE for groups currently under-represented;
  • provide opportunities for students to study flexibly and to ‘earn and learn’;
  • become the dominant HE qualification below Honours level.

Source: HEFCE, 2000

The new qualification was aimed at a market poorly served by many Universities (particularly the pre-1992 Universities). The Foundation Degree Prospectus (HEFCE, 2000) identifies a number of markets for this qualification including:

  • employees seeking to enhance their education and skills;
  • students who are on Advanced Modern Apprenticeships;
  • school and college leavers, particularly those with Vocational A levels who wish to study full time or part time;
  • labour market returners and the unemployed.

The essential features of foundation degrees, also identified in the prospectus, show that they were intended to encompass the elements of access, employment relevance, skills and progression which have been such a feature of educational change since the start of the 1990s. To achieve this vision the prospectus put forward a structure involving higher education, further education and employers in a three-way collaborative partnership. Closer working between the sectors has been suggested by many authors. Melville (1999) talks about a ‘seamless web’ of further and higher education providing easy transition for students. Harvey (1996) put forward the idea of a ‘federal omniversity’ with all FE and HE institutions in an area working together under one name with the full range of post-compulsory education provision on offer (see also Smith and Bocock, 1999). Marks (2002) sees closer working and collaboration as desirable in order to produce a less intimidatory system more appealing to adult students. Foundation degrees allow the sectors to move more closely towards this ideal.

4. Foundation Degrees at the University of Southampton

In 1997, the University of Southampton set up a new faculty to spearhead its commitment to widening participation and lifelong learning. It was clear that to have a significant impact on the composition of the student body applying to the University, the faculty would need to change the nature of the curriculum alongside changes in admissions, student support and guidance and the formation of strategic partnerships. When foundation degrees were announced, the faculty, under the leadership of Professor Bob Fryer, saw a number of benefits. The faculty needed to grow for strategic reasons and foundation degrees provided an area of government-backed growth. The curriculum needed to change radically to bring in more part-time students, to develop the skills agenda and to enrol from hard-to-reach sectors, all aims of foundation degrees. The faculty had been working hard at improving its working relationships with local strategic stakeholders and foundation degrees were seen to be a good vehicle for developing that work with business, public services and other educational institutions. The new faculty also needed to cement its working relationships with other parts of the University and the new qualification was seen as one way of doing this with the added benefit of raising awareness more generally within the University about widening participation issues.

This study considers the experience of three of the University’s foundation degree projects; two have been validated and are now running and one failed to get to validation. The University and its consortium bid successfully for pilot funding and additional student numbers for a Foundation Degree in Health Care. This consortium consisted of four further education colleges and five National Health Service Trusts (now 14 Trusts due to re-organisation in the Health Service). This programme was validated in 2002 and recruited its first cohort of full-time and part-time students in September 2002. A second foundation degree was developed in conjunction with Local Education Authorities and three further education colleges. This Foundation Degree Working with Children is aimed at classroom assistants, play workers and other people working with young children aged up to 11 years. It is a part-time programme. This programme recruited its first cohort in January 2003.

The third example, which involved developing a Foundation Degree in Sport and Leisure Management, was not successful. The level of interest in the partner further education colleges was very high but it was impossible to secure sufficient employer involvement. Initial discussions took place with a local district council’s leisure services department and with leisure facility providers within the private sector. The employers were interested in a programme for middle managers of leisure centres which would give credit for specific training undertaken by the staff. It was difficult to secure commitment from the district council to release staff time to work with the University and FECs to identify the curriculum (particularly the academic content) for the programme. In the private sector, the rapid turnover of staff and the practice of franchising contracts for sport and leisure services meant that building up a working relationship with key decision-makers proved difficult. Milbourne et al (2003) identify such changes in personnel as a key factors working against the success of collaborative partnerships. After about eight months of effort, the decision was taken by the University not to pursue programme development in this area due to the lack of progress and the high cost of staff time. A number of factors contributing to the failure of the programme were identified in discussions with key partners:

  • The employers had been using commercial off-the-shelf training modules which are industry-specific and which suited their purpose (but did not give academic credit) – it was easier for the managers to continue with this model of CPD;
  • The employers were unable to commit staff time to the development phase of the curriculum – the team was unable to secure commitment and resource from the decision-making level of the organisation;
  • The industry has a very high turnover of staff and in the private sector the commitment is only to provide staff with immediate health and safety training and not to commit to longer-term staff development for retention purposes;
  • The University systems for Quality Assurance make the validation process time-consuming and lengthy (even though the University of Southampton has worked hard at increasing its responsiveness to employer needs);
  • The existence of HNDs in this area of the curriculum increase the difficulty of securing commitment of all partners to the development process.

5. Articulation of aims