The purpose, parameters, and outcomes of UK Tertiary Education – a policy Knowledge Exchange

Policy in the post secondary education landscape has attempted to bring Further (FE) and Higher Education (HE) together into a single Tertiary Sector (DfE, 2019) that now encompasses education and training, once seen as two distinct areas. This is a core part of the government’s strategy to ‘level up’ the country. However, this is a complex space, marked by policy tensions across the four nations of the UK each with different approaches to the notion of tertiary provision through offerings, funding mechanisms, governance, and the varied lifelong learning trajectories of the learners. It comprises many stakeholders, ranging from traditional universities and FE colleges to independent training providers (ITPs), for-profit private universities, University Technical Colleges (UTCs), sixth form colleges, and employers, all with different governance structures, relationships with their local contexts, and covering a huge range of qualifications: sub-degree awards and apprenticeships through to PhDs and various forms of continuing professional development (CPD). Indeed, the sheer range of provision has become so far-reaching that there are questions about how meaningful a category it is for framing policy.  

Our previous research has shown how the post-16 landscape can be difficult to navigate for young people, is not well understood by employers, and only in a few instances do institutions from the various parts of the system work together in any symbiotic and meaningful way. The strands of provision often overlap, and at some levels result in similar outcomes – a broader view of the landscape is missing. There is, therefore, an urgent need to work with key stakeholders to co-construct a meaningful map of the sector. In compiling this map we will take into account these complexities and tensions to understand how policy is enacted at local, national, and cross-jurisdictional levels, and to define the policy levers that will ensure  productive cross-sector working. To do this we are convening Knowledge Exchange (KE) workshops that will address the lacuna in this  broader understanding of tertiary education. Crucially, it will draw key policy, employer, and academic stakeholders together into a partnership network to collaboratively map out the space and key issues from different stakeholder perspectives.

 Project duration: October 2021 – March 2022

 Research team: Susan James Relly (PI), Andrea Laczik (Co-I), James Robson (Co-I), Katherine Emms

 Funder: This project is funded by The Edge Foundation