New ways of being public: the experience of foundation degrees

Abstract

This article explores the recent development of new spheres of public engagement within UK higher education through an analysis of the foundation degree qualification. These, according to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), were designed to equip students with the combination of technical skills, academic knowledge, and transferable skills increasingly being demanded by employers, and they have been identified as being at the forefront of educational agendas aimed at increasing employer engagement in the higher education (HE) sector. As such, they might be regarded as an expression of the 'increasing privatisation' of HE. However, this article argues that, on the contrary, they have enabled the development of new areas of public engagement relating to the design and delivery of courses as well as providing new opportunities for the pursuit of public policy goals such as widening participation. Such outcomes, it is argued, are the result of a number of factors that explain the 'publicness' of the qualification and that should be sustained to ensure the implementation of the 2006 Leitch Report in a manner that further develops public engagement.

Crossing the FE/HE divide: the transition experiences of direct entrants at Level 6

“…In comparison with a total of 2,027,085 UK-domiciled students registered at UK HEIs in 2008/09 (HESA 2010), the proportion of students completing foundation degrees is small. However, the number of foundation degree students has increased considerably from 4320 in 2001-02 to a total of 99,745 registered or expected to register with HEIs or FECs in England in 2009-10 (HEFCE 2010, and is clearly on course to meet the government target of 100,000 foundation degree enrolments by 2010-11 (DfES 2007HEFCE 2010). Of the 2007-08 foundation degree qualifiers registered at HEIs in England, 1 59% (4950) of full-time and 42% (1570) of part-time students progressed to an honours degree programme the following academic year (HEFCE 2010, 43).…”

“…The research was intended to 'measure' how well the transition into the HEI was being managed and, where necessary, improve it. The body of literature relating to foundation degrees generally focuses on the experience and completion of a foundation degree programme (Thurgate, McGregor, and Brett 2007;Thurgate and McGregor 2008;Craig 2009) rather than on academic progression following completion. This research adds to the small body of existing work, discussed below, on progression to a top-up year.…”

Harnessing Political Theory to Facilitate Students' Engagement with Graduate ‘Employability’: A Critical Pyramid Approach

“…In light of these factors the onus would seem to be on the discipline to develop ways of focusing students on the relationship between a degree in politics and graduate employment that reflects the critical texture of the discipline of politics. Recently, academics working in politics and sociology have attempted to develop more critical pedagogies around graduate employment (see, for example, Craig, 2009a and 2009b). The next section takes a closer look at the weaknesses of conventional employability pedagogies.…”

Reproducing police culture in a British university: findings from an exploratory case study of police foundation degrees

“…A key feature of the IPLDP is that recruits in several British police forces undertake part of their training at local universities where they study for qualifications such as foundation degrees. Whilst there is a growing body of literature on foundation degrees in general (Morgan, Jones, & Fitzgibbon, 2004;Craig, 2009), and a limited number of nonempirical published studies of the IPLDP (Peace, 2006;Wood & Tong, 2009;Blakemore & Simpson, 2010), there has been a surprising absence of published empirical investigations into police foundation degrees. This article begins an exploration of this sparsely chartered territory.…”