(Extract from ESCalate Summer Newsletter 2009.)

Scholarly Activity undertaken in HE in FE

Higher Education (HE) is delivered by a range of providers including Universities, Colleges of HE and Colleges of Further Education (FE). Differencesexist within and between providers, resulting in a diverse HE landscape in which 10% of HE is deliveredin FE colleges (FECs.) In some cases the level of this provision is substantial– one FEC receives teaching and learning funding from HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England)which exceeds that of at least one University and several HE Colleges. In other words, HE in FE is a significant component of the HE environment. The Mixed Economy Group (MEG) exists as a community of practice within and between its member colleges. It also seeks greater collaboration with more traditional HE providers in order to share the different types of expertise within FECs and HEIs.

This article is about scholarly activity within FECs delivering HE, and it explores the need to arrive at new definitions of “research” and “scholarly activity” which are more appropriate to that more diverse HE landscape. FECs do not set out to be research-intensive institutions – their purpose is to meet the immediate higher skill needs of local employers and to widen student participation in HE by offering appropriate vocational courses. Staff try to reconcile the growing recognition of the status of good teaching within HE with the traditional HE requirement that the tutor will be heavily involved in subject-based research. Access to this expertise is also perceived as part of the “student experience” of HE: both QAA (Quality Assurance Agency for HE) and HEFCE promote scholarly activity within HE in FE. Scholarly activity can take many forms and in order to be of value it does not have to conform to conventional notions of what may constitute research. FECs as a context for the delivery of HE bring both a range of opportunities to redefine and understand not only scholarly activity partly through the potential benefits of teaching that is informed by practitioner experience.

It is likely that as colleges achieve Foundation Degree Awarding Powers (FDAP) they will seek to work in consortia with other colleges that do not have this status, forming a distinctive self-help group aimed at supporting professional and academic standards within the consortia. A fundamental question here is the extent to which engagement in scholarly activity (whatever that might be) is necessary for the kind of professional and academic climate within which that support is provided. A recent evaluation of the HEFCE-funded CETLs1found that “the emergence of teachers who teach within a discipline and have pedagogic expertise, but are not active researchers within the discipline, is antithetical to the (traditional)core purpose of HE.”[1] In other words, despite the changes brought about by the widening range of courses and the Government’s promotion of the higher-skills agenda, the status of teaching practitionersin HE as opposed to teacher-researchersremains low.

Recent changes in student finance arrangements mean that students are now aware of the financial contribution that they make to HE, and are more demanding of provider institutions. They expect high standards of teaching in return for their fees and tools such as the National Student Survey provide a vehicle through which teaching quality can be judged. It is essential that HE in FE offers an experience which, although different in many respects from a traditional “undergraduate” experience nonetheless offers high quality and relevant learning, and qualifications which are valued by students and employers alike.FECs deliver the majority of existing Foundation Degrees: these qualifications require a high level of employer involvement in their design, delivery and assessment. Students choosing this study route do so in the expectation that they will have a high quality experience which equips them with higher level skills and the knowledge needed to perform at an equally high level. Many Colleges have a long history of delivering high quality programmes of vocational higher education, including the larger FECs(known as MEG) and some specialist Colleges.

Within FE, teaching skills are both valued and required: unlike HEI staff, all FE staff are obliged to gain recognised teaching qualifications at an early stage in their career. (The recent NSS noted the high level of FEC student satisfaction with the quality of teaching received.) However, coupled with intensive teaching roles when compared with HEI colleagues, time for pure research is limited. Despite this most colleges support staff to undertake research and scholarly activity, either as part of their specialist teaching role or as part of gaining research-based post-graduate qualifications. Colleges recognise the need for staff to have qualifications at least one level above that at which they teach.

In order to ensure that courses and student experiences are of the highest quality, academic staff need to demonstrate not only mastery of their subject but also currency of professional practice and conduct. Indeed, many college staff will have obtained high level professional qualifications before commencing a teaching career and will maintain contact with their “parent” profession as part of their own continuing professional development. This is especially important in disciplines such as Law, Accountancy and the Professions Allied to Medicine, where currency and competence in professional standards is viewed as at least as important as more traditional academic attainments, such as peer referenced publication. Many colleges encourage staff to maintain professional body membership and support participation in the CPD programmes offered by the professions. Professional qualifications can be important manifestations of taking a scholarly approach to one’s practice and, crucially, evidence acquisition of a high level of experiential knowledge and professional expertise. This is one of many examples of scholarly activity common in FECs.

Research into scholarly activity within MEG member colleges shows a range of innovative practice:

  • There are good examples of FECs working with other FECs and a shared validating HEI to investigate the mechanisms that can link the continuous professional updating undertaken by industry-active staff with teaching methods and resources as well as research that feeds back into academia, industry and the classroom
  • Several colleges are also producing Research Strategies that try to bridge the gap between formal academic research and the more applied learning that is relevant to the college HE strategy. Sabbaticalsare not unknown in FECs, but are usually directly sector or industry related
  • Many Art and Design staff retain their practitioner status with regular shows and exhibitions of work. Many exhibit nationally and this experience of presenting and curating feeds into their teaching practice.
  • Many FEC HE staff teach at partner HEIs and most HE in FE staff have close working links with , e.g., fdf (Foundation Degree Forward) and their own professional bodies.Their practitioner experience and expertise is a fundamental component of their teaching.

An emerging trend is the development of Research Conferences involving an HEI and its partner FECs. These enable a sharing of research practice which acknowledges the different types of higher study undertaken by HE staff working in very different environments. New qualifications such as Foundation Degrees require new approaches to staff development and trainingand new definitions of research, scholarship,etc. Colleges are developing systems which incorporate accepted views of academic excellence butalso prioritise the currency and credibility in vocational disciplines demanded by students and employers. Such approaches are not in themselves inferior to more established definitions. They represent a response to the need for a rich and diverse higher education offer in which a variety of institutions build on their strengths to provide an equally varied range of opportunities for all learners.

Madeleine King and John Widdowson

Mixed Economy Group of Colleges, 2009.

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1 2005-2010 Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning Programme. Formative Evaluation report to HEFCE by the Centre for Study in Education and Training/Institution of Educational Technology. September 2008.