How can my university or college improve employee access to higher education?

On 6 April 2010 employees got the right to request time off for training; at the other end of the age spectrum, Michael Gove has encouraged some schools to develop more of a workplace feel. So it’s clear there’s a government drive towards the employee access agenda.

By providing courses and programmes of study appropriate to the needs of employers and their staff, your organisation can develop additional income streams. It’s also a way of increasing non-traditional student numbers and progressing towards the government’s target of 40% of workers having a degree or equivalent by 2020.

The government white paper, Putting students at the heart of higher education, encourages universities to engage with employers to accredit or “kitemark” courses. This kind of employer engagement could help you better tailor your courses for your students, and improve their employability.

Work-based learning has different meanings depending on where you work. Listen to a podcast about vocational learning and apprenticeships with Stan Unwin, one of JISC’s workbased learning advisors.

JISC’s Regional Support Centres can offer tailored advice and guidance to colleges and universities may also find their advice helpful on a generic level. Most have work-based learning advisers. There will be an RSC that knows your area of the country and any particularly local needs. They can also provide strategic advice and guidance through peer-to-peer support networks.

We’ve developed a work-based learning maturity toolkit to help institutions assess how well prepared they are to deliver effective work-based learning. You can assess your current performance against seven criteria, identify the barriers to achieving your vision and develop a plan of action to overcome them.

We’ve funded a major programme of work to develop tools and advice to help institutions with different aspects of work-based learning.

If you are planning to to develop new courses collaboratively with an employer the Co Generative toolkit can take you through the steps. This Cogent project was a partnership between the University of Gloucestershire, University of Winchester and the Western Vocational Lifelong Learning Network.

Another project used e-portfolios to tailor course material and its delivery for the needs of work-based learners. Helpful videos and other resources are available here on the University of Wolverhampton website.

Engagement with small and medium-sized enterprises can be particularly difficult. We’ve developed ACUMEN to share tools and experiences resulting from projects we’ve funded, for example the Xerte Learning Object Creator Tool for creating interactive, open learning materials which can be shared with businesses.

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to communicate your business-facing aims more widely, the University of Hertfordshire website is a good example.

If you’re engaging with a number of different employers, you may want to manage your relationships systematically. You may find our guide to customer relationship management useful.

In addition businesses and students will be able to find your course information more easily if you use the XCRI standard to share course-related information between organisations.