Higher Vocational Qualifications: Differing Approaches Within the United Kingdom to Meeting Skills Needs for the Twenty-First Century

Reeve, Fiona and Gallacher, Jim (2022). Higher Vocational Qualifications: Differing Approaches Within the United Kingdom to Meeting Skills Needs for the Twenty-First Century. In: Knight, Elizabeth; Bathmaker, Ann-Marie; Moodie, Gavin; Orr, Kevin; Webb, Susan and Wheelahan, Leesa eds. Equity and Access to High Skills through Higher Vocational Education. Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning (PSAELL). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 145–167.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84502-5_8

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the opportunities associated with the introduction of a new generation of higher vocational qualifications in the United Kingdom, namely, higher and degree apprenticeships in England and graduate apprenticeships in Scotland. Very different policy contexts have emerged in Scotland and England and the implications of these for the types of provision which have been developed are considered. The different policy frameworks have both strengths and limitations and the implications of these for the range of programmes which are now being established are analysed. However, the first section of the chapter also considers the earlier generation of higher vocational qualifications. The limitations of these qualifications have helped create the context in which there is a perceived need for these higher level apprenticeships as a response to the education and training needs of the UK in the twenty-first century. This comparison between Scotland and England can also provide an opportunity for ‘policy learning’. David Raffe and his colleagues have advocated the value of ‘home international’ comparisons and the idea that the UK can be a ‘natural laboratory’ for policy learning (Raffe and Byrne 2005). Given that England and Scotland are now developing graduate-level apprenticeship schemes, in quite different ways, there may be an important opportunity for ‘policy learning’, which could improve developments in both countries and further afield.

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• Item ORO ID
• 86940
• Item Type
• Book Section
• ISBN
• 3-030-84501-X, 978-3-030-84501-8
• Project Funding Details

• Funded Project Name	Project ID	Funding Body
  Not Set	Not Set	The Open University (OU)

• Keywords
• higher education; vocational education; apprenticeship; degree apprenticeship; graduate apprenticeship; vocational qualifications
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport > Childhood, Youth and Sport > Childhood and Youth
  Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport > Childhood, Youth and Sport
  Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) > Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport
  Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS)
• Research Group
• Lifelong Learning in Further and Higher Education
• Copyright Holders
• © 2022 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
• Related URLs
• • https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84502-...(Publication)
• Depositing User
• Fiona Reeve