Professor David Eastwood
Chief Executive
Higher Education Funding Council for England
HEPI Conference
“The Higher Education Contribution to the Skills Agenda”
10 October 2007
Skills and Employer Engagement
Or where the novel mingles with the traditional
HE already a major supplier of
economically valuable workforce:
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HE is a demand-led system
Preparing undergraduates for the world of work –
high levels of employability and rates of return
Excellent post-graduate provision
Continuing growth in commercially funded CPD
Long history of collaboration with Professional
Bodies, now including SSCs
Research and Knowledge Transfer.
The economic contribution of HE
UK higher education is a strong force for economic
growth. Already it is worth £45 billion to the economy
on a public investment of £15 billion.
Income in 2005-06 from:
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Collaborative research - £440m
Contract research - £555m
Consultancy - £200m
CPD - £335m
Two Strong Themes
Business/Employer Engagement With HE:
• Strategic engagement – research partnerships
• Business improvement – knowledge exchange
• Responsiveness to demand – consultancy and workforce
development
High Quality Workforce:
• Strategic demand – STEM graduates and post-graduates
• Graduate employability – Generic and vocationally specific
knowledge and skills
• Demand responsive CPD – Keeping graduate skills at the
leading edge
• Workforce development – Bringing more up to HE level
The Leitch challenge for HE
“World class high skills, exceeding 40% of the adult
population qualified to Level 4 and above.”
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Encompass the whole working age population
Shared responsibility for funding growth –
employers, individuals and the Government
Focus on economically valuable skills
Demand-led rather than centrally planned
Adaptive and responsive to market needs
Building on existing structures.
The unique contribution of HE to
workforce development
HE can meet the needs of employers for:
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High level generic skills: communication problem
solving, creativity, insight, methods of enquiry etc
High level knowledge based skills and competences
and the ability to apply them
The highest level knowledge and skills at Masters
and Doctorate levels to lead the way in innovation
and research.
FDs have led the way in employer
collaboration with HE:
• SSC collaborative projects, including Cogent,
Summit, GO Skills, LLUK Skillsmart and others
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Joint projects with major employers across the
range of skills and qualification levels
Development of employer-led consortia, including
rail, utilities, aircraft maintenance and bio-pharmacy
Partnership with British Chambers of Commerce –
now eight SME focused projects
Innovation in accreditation of in-house training and
qualification frameworks
Importance of HE/FE partnerships.
Wider HE sector response
Engaging with employers on skills is an increasingly
familiar task and over the past year or so the sector
has achieved much with HEFCE support:
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Growth in third stream activity
Third stream ‘second mission’ pilots
Higher Level Skills Pathfinders
Employer Engagement pilots
28 LLNs, many with an employer focus
New flexibility in funding and risk sharing.
But there is a new challenge:
Around 12 million people in work, most of whom will
not progress to HE unless we innovate
DfES
estimates LFS 2006,Q4
Working
Age ‘000s
UK
Eng.
36,652 28.2% 19.4% 22.0%
Level 4+
%
Level 3
%
Level 2
%
30,709 28.1% 19.2% 22.1%
Meeting the challenge
HEFCE 2007 grant letter:
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5,000 employer co-funded places in 2008-09
At least 5,000 per year growth in following years
Build capacity to respond to the Leitch Report
Increase Foundation Degree enrolments to
100,000 by 2010 .
Meeting the challenge
Growing the new market of employer co-funded
provision for people in work who may otherwise never
experience HE:
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Part-time and short course accredited modules/units
APEL, progression and credit accumulation
Validation of employer in-house training and shared
delivery with employers
Innovation in teaching and learning delivery
Innovative partnerships, including public/private
partnerships.
“HE transforming workforce
development” programme
Action research, to test employer market for higher
skills and HE response to supplying it, together with
building new capacity and capability in the HE sector:
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HE provider projects
High Level Skills Pathfinders
Sector skills development projects
Foundation Degree growth
Strategy and funding development for next SR
Communications to drive change amongst
employers and HE providers.
But this is not simply about
implementing a “skills” agenda:
• HEFCE has now committed more than £30m to
employer engagement projects:
•12 HE employer engagement/co-funded
workforce development projects
•3 regional HE in Train To Gain Pathfinders.
• Several of these link employer based workforce
development to business transformation through
knowledge exchange.
HEFCE Development Funded Projects –
Breaking New Ground
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Coventry University
•Organisational development inside major national and
international organisations
•Innovative, accredited, entirely work-based learning for
middle managers, almost all with L2 or L3 prior qualifications
•Strong HE pedagogical model underpinning a 60
credit qualification. Tutors based in employer’s workplace
•Learning and teaching drawn from internal employer case
studies of current organisational issues and problems
•Senior managers involved at every stage of programme
design, oversight of delivery, assessment of business impact
•Employer benefits from better qualified, more highly skilled
managers ready to deliver solutions to business challenges.
HEFCE Development Funded Projects –
Breaking New Ground
• London South Bank University
•Central employer engagement unit brings together academic
course directors, careers and work-placement services
•Building local employer networks to deliver work-based
learning and tackle key higher level skills deficiencies in
engineering, sport and health, cultural and creative industries
and public services.
• University of Salford
•Transformational programme, creating a university-wide
workplace learning infrastructure – responsive quality
assurance, new ICT support, HE staff development
•Working initially with 50 large and small employers to create
opportunities for employees to progress from vocational
access programmes through to professional doctorate level.
Existing Policy and Beyond
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The relevance of existing HEFCE approaches:
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LLNs
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HE in FECs
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Enhancing provision, especially in HE cold spots
Fresh challenges and fresh possibilities for flexible
HEIs: mission focus
An agenda for all
The classroom, the labs and the workplace:
sites for learning, sites for excellence
Who pays, who gains?