The Role of Special Events in Personalising Higher Education in Business

Abstract

Personalisation of education is high on the political agenda within the United Kingdom (UK), having entered the educational policy debate at the turn of the millennium through the inception of the Children's Plan (DfES, 2004). The principles of this early vision being to give, "every single child the chance to be the best they can be, whatever their talent or background" (Miliband, 2006). However, to date, there remains a lack of insight into how personalisation is interpreted and practiced within a higher education setting (Becket and Brookes, 2012), resulting in a definitional fuzziness (Hartley, 2008) and multiple manifestations of the application of personalisation.Existing knowledge of how higher education in business is personalised is particularly sparse. Notably the role that initiatives such as alumni mentoring and special events can play in the personalisation of business students' education. Within Nottingham Business School, personalisation covers a broad remit from the use of diagnostics in understanding learning styles to many targeted skills and employability events to help our students explore and reach their full potential.This research draws upon current practice within the Personalisation project of Nottingham Business School, with the aim of proposing an effective model of what personalisation of undergraduate international business curriculum might look like "on the ground" from an academic and student perspective. The research also assesses the potential of several specific initiatives, such as, an alumni language mentoring scheme and bespoke special events, upon building the aspirations of students and helping them to reach their potential.