Employers in the driving seat?: new thinking in FE leadership

The premise of this research is that in recent years, vocational skills and further education policy has seen a sustained rise in prominence in the role of employers in its shaping. The notion of education and learning as having inherent worth is, it can be argued, losing ground to the primacy of the needs of industry, productivity and employers. Whereas influence within the system could once be described by a triangle between employers, providers and state, these reforms place the interests of employers as very much the dominant force in shaping state-funded technical and skills policy...  [+] Show more

The premise of this research is that in recent years, vocational skills and further education policy has seen a sustained rise in prominence in the role of employers in its shaping. The notion of education and learning as having inherent worth is, it can be argued, losing ground to the primacy of the needs of industry, productivity and employers. Whereas influence within the system could once be described by a triangle between employers, providers and state, these reforms place the interests of employers as very much the dominant force in shaping state-funded technical and skills policy and provision, with the role of the state and certainly providers, relegated.

This project aims to give leaders space to reflect on these changes; to give a better frame of reference for their decision-making through a clearer understanding of the forces at work and how they affect the way they need to think about their provision and their businesses. It hopes to establish some of these boundaries by considering whether the balance between provider/employer/state in the FE system is shifting, and how this affects how leaders see their role, priorities and possibilities, as leaders both of organisations and of the sector as a whole.

Excerpts from publication.