Fiona Reeve

Employer–university ‘partnerships’: a key problem for work‐based learning programmes?

This paper focuses on the development of work‐based learning programmes within higher education in the UK. It explores how ‘partnership’ with employers came to be seen as a central aspect of this new form of provision. However, we suggest that this emphasis on partnership has been problematic. We focus, in particular, on three areas of concern. Firstly, the limited evidence that employers wish to engage in these sorts of relationships with universities. Secondly, the problems arising from the different cultures of the potential partners and, in particular, different understandings of ‘learning’ and ‘knowledge’. Thirdly, the emergence of the quality assurance agenda within higher education, which is reducing the influence of employers in these programmes. We conclude that the emphasis placed on partnership in the policy and practice literature may well be hindering the more widespread development of work‐based learning in higher education.

A comparative study of work‐based learning within Higher Nationals in Scotland and Foundation Degrees in England: contrast, complexity, continuity

Scotland and England now have systems of work‐related higher education which differ from each other in important respects. While Scotland embarks on a process of modernising its existing system of Higher National Certificates and Diplomas, in England there has been a decisive shift away from this form of provision towards Foundation Degrees. Meanwhile, providers in both countries are being encouraged to engage ever more closely with employers. This article draws on empirical work with programme organisers to explore the nature and extent of work‐based and work‐related learning that can be found within these two systems. Despite the contrasting national structures, we identify considerable continuity between practices in the two countries and also considerable variability in the forms of work‐based or work‐related learning which can be found within each of them. This variability emerges as a pragmatic response to the difficulties of engaging employers with these programmes, and could we suggest results in valuable learning experiences for students.

Doing identity work: fuzzy boundaries and flexibility in further education

Abstract Drawing on a sample of interviews from an empirical research project this article examines the ways in which discourses of flexibility are ‘worked’ to produce complex and shifting identity positions in the workplace of further education in the United Kingdom. The analysis follows others in viewing the workplace as a ‘site of struggle’ in which identity positions are discursively constructed. However, this is not to suggest that new identities associated with discourses of the ‘flexible worker’ are unproblematically taken up. The analysis draws on Foucaults notions of discourse and power to suggest that college lecturers are actively working the discourses of flexibility to produce a kaleidoscope of new identities for new contexts, new circumstances and new purposes.

Flexibility at Work: A Study of Further Education.

Abstract This article draws on the analysis from a 2-year empirical study of flexibility in further education. It outlines some of the major themes for managers and staff in attempts to introduce greater organisational flexibility into colleges: increased bus(i/y)ness, shifting identities, and notions of good and bad flexibility. The analysis suggests that insofar as increased ‘busyness’ is associated with shifting roles and responsibilities with consequent shifts in identity, for those who have worked in further education for some time there is a tendency to certain forms of nostalgic narratives about the good forms of flexibility in the past, compared with the present. The interview data suggests a complex picture of the ways in which flexibility is experienced in further education.

Can New Technology Remove Barriers to Work-Based Learning?.

In this paper Fiona Reeve, Jim Gallacher and Terry Mayes of Glasgow Caledonian University, bring together two current themes in higher education, work‐based learning and the use of new technology in teaching and learning. The paper begins to explore their interaction by examining the ways in which new technology can help to overcome some of the barriers which exist to work‐based learning. To begin this analysis a general model of a WWW‐based learning resource is described which has relevance for a range of open learning contexts. A central aspect of this model is the use of communication technologies to promote the creation of learning dialogues. The way in which this general model might be applied to work‐based learning is then examined. Having suggested that such a model has much to offer work‐based learning, some of the constraints which might be encountered on implementation are then identified. Finally, the authors conclude that it is in promoting more and better forms of communication that new techn...

Why don’t you give the money back? Questions of accounting and accountability in three accounts of educational research

This paper explores questions of accounting and accountability through three accounts of an empirical study of flexibility in two UK further education colleges. In this study, conceptions of flexibility and lifelong learning are being interrogated primarily through the analysis of interviews conducted with students and staff during the autumn term of 1999. In three parallel representations of this research, the authors present an algorithmic tale, a tale of strategic improvisations and a reflexive tale. A discussion of the performative value, or validity, of each account is linked to questions of accountability - to funding bodies, to participants in the research process, to the authors themselves, their peers and other potential beneficiaries. The paper concludes that writing about empirical research from a poststructural perspective can be a risky undertaking.