Abstract
Higher vocational education (HVE) has a long history in England, with Higher National Diplomas (HNDs) and Higher National Certificates (HNCs) introduced nearly 100 years ago. Since then, HVE qualifications and further education (FE) colleges that are key providers of HVE have moved in and out of the gaze of policymakers. While universities are also providers of vocationally oriented higher education, particularly at bachelor level, over the past three decades higher education (HE) offered in FE colleges has comprised around 10 per cent of all HE provision. This is despite many changes in government and policy that have significantly affected what HVE involves. In this chapter we consider HVE in England during the 2010s, focusing on provision in FE colleges, especially sub-bachelor level qualifications. We provide a picture of HVE’s functions and the distinctive form that HVE has taken in England, based on available statistical data. We examine the different purposes ascribed to HVE by policymakers, the colleges that provide HVE, as well as students taking HVE courses, and we explore how and whether HVE may contribute to opening up access to higher level education. We argue that during the last decade, an ideology of market competition has been more important in determining HVE’s form and function than other drivers, including meeting the apparent needs of employers for skilled workers. Despite the stated intentions of government policy to diversify HE, and considerable work on the development of new higher level technical routes, the functioning of the market promoted during this period has tended to marginalize anything but bachelor-level HE offered in HE institutions. In this context, we discuss the positioning of HVE in relation to the fields of ‘higher’ and ‘further’ education in England and ask what the implications are of positioning HVE as a form of higher vocational education, located within the FE and skills field, compared with viewing HVE as vocational higher education, which is associated with the HE field. Finally, we question whether and how under current conditions HVE can be a resource to enhance social justice in and through education.
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Notes
- 1.
The general evolution of colleges in the other nations of the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) has been similar to that in England, but the current situation of college higher education is quite different.
- 2.
The 165 colleges that offer HE include general colleges of further education, specialist colleges in art, design, and performing arts, and land-based colleges, as well as institutes of adult learning and sixth form colleges (244 colleges in total) (AoC 2019).
- 3.
See http://mixedeconomygroup.co.uk/about-mixed-economy-group/ (accessed March 2020).
- 4.
A total of 541 organizations in England provided sub-bachelor level 4 and 5 courses in 2016–2017: 210 FE colleges, 157 private training providers, 96 higher education institutions, and 45 alternative providers (Foster 2019: 6).
- 5.
While other personal and social benefits may derive from education, the economic understanding of social mobility we use derives from the definition of social mobility used by the UK’s Social Mobility Commission. This focuses on employment outcomes not on educational achievement: ‘Social mobility is the link between a person’s occupation or income and the occupation or income of their parents. Where there is a strong link, there is a lower level of social mobility. Where there is a weak link, there is a higher level of social mobility’ (Social Mobility Commission 2020).
- 6.
The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines information about individuals gathered by the schools, colleges, and universities they attended, with data on the taxation they pay, so long as they are not self-employed.
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Bathmaker, AM., Orr, K. (2022). Higher Vocational Education in England in the 2010s: Positioning, Purpose, and Possibilities in a Highly Stratified, High Participation System of Higher Education. In: Knight, E., Bathmaker, AM., Moodie, G., Orr, K., Webb, S., Wheelahan, L. (eds) Equity and Access to High Skills through Higher Vocational Education. Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84502-5_4
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