Essays on Employer Engagement in Education

Anthony Mann, Prue Huddleston, Elnaz Kashefpakdel, Anthony Mann, Prue Huddleston, Elnaz Kashefpakdel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351386661
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Berufsausbildung

Building on new theories about the meaning of employability in the twenty-first century and the power of social and cultural capital in enabling access to economic opportunities, Essays on Employer Engagement in Education considers how employer engagement is delivered and explores the employment and attainment outcomes linked to participation.

Introducing international policy, research and conceptual approaches, contributors to the volume illustrate the role of employer engagement within schooling and the life courses of young people. The book considers employer engagement within economic and educational contexts and its delivery and impact from a global perspective. The work explores strategic approaches to the engagement of employers in education and concludes with a discussion of the implications for policy, practice and future research.

Essays on Employer Engagement in Education will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of careers guidance, work-related learning, teacher professional development, the sociology of education, educational policy and human resource management. It will also be essential reading for policymakers and practitioners working for organisations engaging employers in education.

Chapter 1

‘Employers at the heart of the system?’

The role of employers in qualification development

Prue Huddleston and Andrea Laczik

Introduction

This chapter explores the longstanding exhortations from government for employers to engage with the education system within England, in particular the drive to encourage employers to become involved in the development of qualifications within the compulsory phase. We do not consider the role of employers in qualification development within the post-compulsory phase, nor within workplace training, where alignment between qualifications and the needs of the labour market may be considered more compelling (Panteia, 2017). Rather, in this chapter we chart the history and rationale for such an approach within the later stages of secondary education between the ages of 14 and 19 years.

In reviewing these developments, we draw upon research evidence and policy documents over the past thirty years. We also draw upon examples of qualifications, some already developed and some still under development, to identify common themes and recurring challenges. This is supplemented by interviews with those responsible for developing qualifications within awarding organisations (AOs) who are charged with the responsibility of engaging employers in their work.

We suggest that the recurring policy rhetoric has been couched in the same terms, with encouragement for employers to be “key partners from the outset” (DfES/DTI/HMT/DWP, 2005); to jump “in the driving seat” (DBIS/DfE, 2016); to “sit at the heart of the system” (DBIS/DfE, 2016). What emerges is that employers have been asked to engage with increasing degrees of intensity within the education system, but more recently within the development of qualifications. It is argued that this presents a number of challenges, not least that this engagement is on a voluntary basis (Keep, 2015a) and that there exists no regulatory framework for their engagement. A further challenge is the actual expertise and heterogeneity of the employer constituency: who are employers and what is their competence in qualification design? How far should their influence extend over what is taught and assessed in our schools and colleges?

What has been presented within these policy discourses is frequently a deficit image of school leavers, with whom employers are ‘dissatisfied’; this line of argument has been traced back over a hundred years (Huddleston, 2012). The simplistic answer appears to be ‘it’s the qualifications’, if we make them tougher, more suited to the needs of employers and, more recently, if we allow employers some input into their design, all will be well. However, Evans (2014) argues that reforming qualifications will make a limited contribution: “it is not the type or content of qualifications that primarily or in isolation make a difference.” She presents evidence from other countries to suggest that stability, clear purpose and clear pathways that are supported by institutional structures (p. 7) make a real difference to student employment prospects. Changing or reforming qualifications is only a part of the picture: the curriculum should encompass far wider aims than simply ensuring students pass tests. As Billett (2014) suggests, the curriculum comprises that which is “intended“, that which is “enacted” and that which is “experienced”. This goes beyond the competence or capacity of employers and of what should reasonably be expected of them.

We conclude that while there may be a role for employers in qualification development, the nature and extent of this should be clearly articulated from the outset. It should be within the competence and capacity of those recruited and rewarded appropriately. This whole endeavour rests upon voluntary commitment, and unless such goodwill is recognised, the enterprise will founder. The most egregious outcome of which will be young people holding qualifications that are neither recognised, nor regarded, by employers because the next round of ‘reform’ has already begun.

Background

There is nothing new in the recent calls contained within the Sainsbury Review (DfE/BIS, 2016), the Skills Plan (DBIS/DfE, 2016) and in the exhortations framed within the revised specifications for technical qualifications, at all levels, for employers to be engaged in the education system. For over forty years, employers have been urged to engage with education in order to provide themselves with the recruits that industry requires and to address concerns about the assumed shortcomings of youth in terms of their ‘employability’ (however defined). This tendency has put the spotlight on education as a means of achieving economic ends within an increasingly competitive and global economy (Watts, 1985; Jamieson, 1991; Hodgson and Spours, 1997); Tomlinson, 2005). Hodgson and Spours (1999) however, suggest that such policies have gone beyond purely economic goals to include social control and social cohesion objectives as well. Other chapters within this volume also recognise possible implications for social mobility through employer engagement.

Driving the economy through employer engagement and qualifications development

The predominant narrative throughout the numerous education policy documents, Acts and White Papers over recent decades in England has been the perceived need to align the education system more closely to the needs of the economy and, by association, the needs of employers. As the government uses qualifications as proxies for skills (Stasz, 2011), the high volume of qualification reforms in the past thirty years targeting the 14–19 education phase comes as no surprise (Raffe, 2013; City and Guilds, 2014). Whatever the merits, or demerits, of using education as a driver for the economy (Dynes, 2012), employers have been urged to engage with the education system in a multiplicity of ways. Examples include the provision of work experience for school pupils; contributing to enterprise activities and challenges; mentoring; giving careers talks and interviews. In 1998, at least forty education-related activities, from primary to higher education, involving employers were identified (Huddleston, 2012).

Employers are now being asked to design and develop the content of technical qualifications, to give their imprimatur to every technical qualification before sign off, even to contribute to assessment. This is in addition to the request to provide extended work placements for every student following a T level qualification (see below). It could be argued that this is the most intense manifestation of employer engagement within the education system. However, this is not the first time that employers have been invited to contribute to the design and development of qualifications. The introduction of the short-lived 14–19 Diplomas between 2005 and 2010 specifically urged employers to become involved in the design and development of Diploma qualifications, as well as other aspects of their delivery (Huddleston and Laczik, 2012). The use of ‘invited’ and ‘urged’ is deliberate since there exists no regulatory framework or statutory requirement for employer engagement; the whole enterprise is predicated upon a voluntarist model. However, it is impossible to judge “how widespread and enthusiastic employer involvement has been” (Laczik and Mayhew, 2015). If potential recruits appear to lack the perceived knowledge, skills and attributes necessary to function in the modern labour market, then employers are expected to state what those knowledge, skills and attributes are. The simplistic answer is that it is the content of the qualification that requires remedy.

Every recent reform proposed within the education and training system for 14–19-year-olds, since 2000 at least, has been predicated on qualification reform. In effect, while qualification reform has been used as a proxy for curriculum reform, the two are not synonymous (Raffe, 2015). Simply juggling the content of the qualification, and its associated assessment strategy, will not necessarily lead to “oven ready and self-basting” labour market entrants (Atkins, 1999). Despite constant qualification reform, employers still bemoan young people’s lack of preparedness for labour market entry. Yet, many employers do not directly recruit school or college leavers (Hogarth et al. 2009) and so are not in the best position to judge if the qualifications young people possess are fit for purpose.

Expectations of employers and from employers: qualification development 1984–2010

Reviewing the past thirty years of vocational qualification reform within the English context reveals continuous attempts to engage employers with varying degrees of intensity. ‘Employer ownership’ has become a buzzword (Laczik and Mayhew, 2015, 567). For example, the development in the 1980s of what became highly successful Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) qualifications required, at least, that some consultation with employers had occurred during their development. This could amount to letters of endorsement, industry advisory panels and suggestion of possible employment outcomes for those gaining the qualification. This evidence was required when submitting a qualification for approval on the register of regulated qualifications. In addition, those responsible for drafting the content within AOs were expected to possess knowledge of the related economic sector.

But this represents employers operating at arm’s length from the technicalities of writing qualification content. It is one thing to suggest in general what current requirements might be in terms of workplace knowledge, skills and attributes, but quite another to write content and to transform that content into viable and valid qualifications. This lesson could be learnt from the development of 14–19 Diplomas in the 2000s where employers reported feeling distant from the content of the qualifications at the final stage; they considered that the content, as devised by them, had been lost as the qualification went through the different technical development phases (Laczik and White, 2009, 403).

These experiences of employer engagement revealed a consistent challenge. Workplaces are so varied in their structure, organisation and composition and in the products and services provided, it is difficult to see how a panel of, allegedly representative, employers could adequately address this complexity. Employers present a heterogeneous group (Gleeson and Keep, 2004; Huddleston and Laczik, 2012) in terms of their size, the sectors they represent and the geographical area within which they operate. Whilst some sectors require employees to be innovative and self-directing, others require strict adherence to set procedures and manuals, where variation could be deemed as subversive. Even within the same sector there are likely to be differences; for example, a large retailer compared to a small, exclusive, independent shop.

A further layer of complexity is added when we enter the territory of ‘soft skills’, much lauded by employers as essential for workplace performance but very difficult to capture within qualification design (Barnett, 2004; Keep, 2015a,Keep, 2015b; Vaughan, 2017). What contribution can employers make here? Arguably the most important contribution is ensuring that their workplaces offer rich learning environments and opportunities (Fuller and Unwin, 2003). Writing a qualification specification that adequately describes and is able to assess ‘soft skills’ to meet the needs of employers is challenging, even for assessment experts (Ahmed, 2015). As long as the two main goals of qualifications are confused/conflated, that is, labour market currency and broader educational aims, then employers will always be disappointed. What appears to them is that qualifications simply do not do “what it says on the tin” (Huddleston, 2017).

General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs), 1992–2007, were broad-based vocational qualifications relevant to a wide range of occupational areas of work and designed to allow an alternative route for post-16 students not wishing to pursue an academic qualification. They built on previous work throughout the 1980s in developing BTEC qualifications and the Certificate of Pre-Vocational Education (CPVE).All these reforms were predicated on some form of employer engagement and involved employer organisations, where willing, to work with awarding organisations in developing the qualifications and to provide a source of advice and point of reference in terms of industry relevance.

However, the extent to which this could be achieved, or was even valued, varied over time and reflects the predispositions of civil servants and their political masters. It also reflects the primacy accorded to academic qualifications and to higher education at the expense of developing highly regarded technical routes into employment or further education or training. It seems that employers were expendable: “at one meeting totally unannounced we were informed by a very senior person from the Qualification Curriculum Authority that he felt such advisory groups served little or no purpose and were to be disbanded!” (Technical Education Matters, November, 2011).

Similarly, with the development of the 14–19 Diplomas (2005–2010), employers were invited to take a leading role in their design, development and indeed some aspects of their delivery. They were also expected to canvass support from other employers, to engage in promoting the qualifications, to design teaching support materials and to provide work experience placements – all this on a voluntary basis (Ertl et al. 2009; Huddleston and Laczik, 2012; Ertl and Stasz, 2010).Perhaps this was the most extensive manifestation of employer engagement in recent times. While there were clear achievements, the Diploma qualifications development faced challenges because of the heterogeneous character of employers, their vested interests and the lack of expertise exactly in their core responsibility – the development of the content of qualifications (Haynes, Wade and Lynch, 2013; Laczik and White, 2009). Given that employers were waved ‘adieu’ before the development of the full range of Diploma qualifications were completed (they were withdrawn in 2010 by the new Coalition government), it is surprising that any goodwill, or appetite, for further employer engagement in qualification development remains.

Qualifications and employer engagement: more recent examples

We now turn our attention to specific examples of attempts to involve employers in qualification development that have been introduced since 2015, and still continue. We consider the extent to which it is merely the reprise of an old refrain, or whether this time, to quote a former Skills Minister, “It is finally getting fixed.”

Tech levels

Tech levels were introduced as part of the implementation of the recommendations set out in the Review of Vocational Education, widely known as the Wolf Review (DfE, 2011). Faced with the prospect of more young people remaining in education or training post-16, following the Raising of the Participation Age (RPA) to 17 in 2013 and to 18 in 2015, there was a need to provide an alternative route for those remaining in full-time education who did not wish to pursue an academic route. As we have shown above, this has been attempted since the last Raising of the School Leaving Age in 1972. It should be stressed that Apprenticeships and workplace training remain outside this provision and are covered by other on-going ‘reforms’. Naturally, these also require substantial employer engagement.

The first group of qualifications resulting from this directive were the so-called Tech levels (level 3) and Tech certificates (level2) qualifications. According to Guidance issued by the DfE (DfE, 2015) to awarding organisations developing these qualifications, or attempting to shoehorn existing qualifications into the ‘new look’ design, Tech levels should be “rigorous advanced level qualifications on a par with A levels and recognised by employers” (p. 8). Similarly, Tech certificates should be “rigorous intermediate qualifications for students wishing to specialise in a specific industry, occupation or occupational group” (p. 8). They “provide post-16 students with the knowledge and skills they need for skilled employment or for further technical study” (DfE, 2017a).

So what is the role for employers here? This time the approach was to canvass employer support and engagement in two ways. Firstly, to insist that awarding bodies, in submitting qualifications for recognition on the register of regulated qualifications, should carry signed endorsements from at least eight employers. Secondly, the qualification content should be mapped against existing sector qualifications to identify overlap and compliance with ‘licence to practice’ criteria (where such exist). In addition, the qualification descriptors should indicate the type of job that someone achieving such a qualification might occupy, in itself something of a shot in the dark since qualifications at that time were in development and not live.

The process appears to involve concept testing a draft qualification with sector representative employe...