Whose curriculum is it anyway? Stakeholder salience in the context of Degree Apprenticeships

Abstract

A Degree Apprenticeship model has recently been introduced into the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education system as part of wider changes to vocational training. The system has experienced numerous rapid changes in regulation and funding, and it is now little understood by many stakeholders. Distinguishing different phases in UK Higher Education, and using a salience model as a lens for analysis, this article identifies and examines stakeholders with regards to their influence on the Higher Education curriculum. The new Degree Apprenticeship model is funded by an employer payroll levy and it requires Higher Education institutions to deliver training to specific standards. This research explores the implications of the model for the Higher Education curriculum, concluding that the direct involvement of employers in the design and delivery of vocational Higher Education introduces untried elements into UK Higher Education on the assumption that the funding requirement will lead to a change in employer behaviour. This, coupled with the opening of Higher Education provision to private providers, transfers power over the curriculum to those with potentially no commitment to wider public values, and may offer a threat to the international standing of UK Higher Education. This article contributes to research in understanding how Higher Education systems respond to, and actors cope with, imposed change.

Supporting student innovation through an engagement, employability and employment ecosystem

“…Yet, many businesses currently engage with universities only when it comes to the recruitment of graduates, which is too far downstream to have any real impact on the HE curriculum or other university activities. Recent attempts to enforce greater employer involvement, such as the development of Degree Apprenticeships, have caused some concern over the shape of the curriculum (Powell and Walsh, 2017). HEIs' external stakeholders need to be more actively involved in explaining their requirements to the sector, and to engage in discussions relating to areas from course development to shaping policy.…”

Employability as a capacity for agency in the workplace: The implications for higher education of a collective perspective on work

“…And yet such agency is an important element of the social purpose of employment. Powell and Walsh (2018), meanwhile, argued that apprenticeship degrees shift control of the curriculum to collectives that may have little or no commitment to public values. But what if one were only to establish an apprenticeship degree with organisations in cases where an additional partnership was also included with a civic organisation?…”

How stakeholders’ data literacy contributes to student success in higher education: a goal-oriented analysis

“…The salience model, as a typology of stakeholders, offers three attributes to describe the stakeholder-manager relationship (Mitchell et al, 1997). This model is also used in the context of higher education for discussing stakeholder-manager relationships (Lyytinen, Kohtamäki, Kivistö, Pekkola, & Hölttä, 2017;Powell & Walsh, 2018). The challenge of using this model in this study is to adapt it for the research purpose.…”