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In 2015 the Government kicked off an ambitious suite of initiatives to drive up the quality and quantity of apprenticeships, to support the UK's economic recovery. Policy priorities included addressing higher level skills shortages to boost productivity, putting employers in the driving seat, and increasing diversity and inclusion so as to realise the full potential of the UK's workforce. This report starts with the context to degree apprenticeships, describes the model of provision, and assesses the policy model against the evidence provided to the HE Commission. It concludes that it is an intrinsically sound policy, but as has so often been the case, the implementation will not deliver the Government’s ambitious policy objectives unless urgent improvement measures are set in place.

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Our interest in quality assurance stems from discussion and debate around quality in higher education which has increasingly become a matter of attention in Australia in recent years. This has been in response to a call to universities for improved efficiency and greater accountability.

One of the authors volunteered to become a member of a committee formed by Standards Australia to develop standards for education and training. The international standards for quality management, the ISO 9000 series, are now published in Australia and New Zealand as the AS3900/NZ9000 series. Standards Australia in 1993 created a subcommittee (QR2/5) to develop a draft set of quality system guidelines to aid interpretation of AS3901/NZ9001/ISO9001 for the education and training industry. The interpretation of standards such as ISO9001, in terms of how they might apply to Australian and New Zealand education and training institutions, proved to be an interesting task. In some ways this task was most difficult for the university system because of its diverse aims, management process and outputs. Show less

Even though Japan and Switzerland are characterised by comparatively low youth unemployment rates, non-standard forms of employment are on the rise, posing a risk to the stable integration of young labour market entrants. Drawing on the French approach of societal analysis, this paper investigates how country-specific school-to-work transition systems stratify the risk of non-standard employment in early career differently in Japan and Switzerland. Our results reveal that in Japan, young entrants who completed university education are least at risk of becoming employed in non-standard work. On the contrary, it is the highly educated university graduates who mainly enter the labour market via non-standard employment in Switzerland, where vocational education promotes smooth transitions into standard employment relationships. Our findings suggest that the transition systems of the two countries differ in the way they revert to non-standard forms of employment. However, while job insecurities may not endanger labour market integration of highly skilled university graduates holding good career prospects in Switzerland, they may go hand in hand with social exclusion processes for the low-educated young entrants lacking bargaining power in the segmented Japanese labour market.

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At present the Swedish points system is one of the main determinants of an applicant either being granted or refused entry into many South African higher education institutions (HEIs). Using a grounded theory approach, this article interprets the experiences of participants whose school performance and therefore university 'entry points' were lower than the expected norm. Despite not meeting standard university entry requirements, these students succeeded at university, completing their degrees in the minimum time available and going on to higher degrees. The journey of these participants, from low entry points to academic success, suggests that points based on school performance are not necessarily the best way of identifying students' potential to succeed in the contemporary South African educational context. If their entry points were not a good indication of their ability to thrive at university, the article asks, what is it about these participants that accounts for their success? And what implications does this have for South African practice, not only with regard to admissions policies but also in relation to the responsibilities of HEIs to students once they are admitted?

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This advice is provided in reponse to a Ministerial reference to the Australian Research Council asking it to analyse the extent to which Australian national priorities correspond with the discipline distribution of Government spending on academic research. This advice focuses on Government funding of the direct costs of research through research grant schemes. Show less

This paper discusses three central issues relating to quality and standards: clarity, comparability and responsibility. The issue of clarity is that we have reached a point of disjunction between the questions being asked by the public and the answers being provided by quality assurance professionals. The issue of comparability comes in two forms: comparing quality and standards between different universities; and comparing the standards of today with the standards of yesterday. The third issue is the question of who is responsible for judging standards. In response to these three issues, four potential approaches to measuring quality are discussed. First, a whole-university approach to quality and standards is promoted. Second, it is argued that quality profiles per university are more valuable than a ranking in a quality league table. Third, it is important to distinguish between the supply side and the demand side of the knowledge economy. Fourth, it is vital to articulate an effective response to the charge that standards have dropped over time.

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This volume contains the proceedings of the first national conference on the Green Paper on Higher Education. The contributors discuss the various aspects of higher education presented by the Green Paper including funding, mergers, educational reform, change, staffing and resources. Show less

This paper examines accountability issues in the tertiary education sector in New Zealand, specifically: the nature of the ownership relationship that exists between the Crown and tertiary education institutions (TEIs); current accountability instruments in the tertiary education sector, including the interim ownership monitoring regime; and issues related to ownership monitoring. The paper notes that the degree of risk in the sector has increased in recent years, that recent proposals to strengthen accountability are intended to foster self-management in TEIs, and that there is a link between governance of TEIs and the need for ownership monitoring. Show less

Following a report by a Parliamentary Committee, the Higher Education Funding Council for England is consulting the sector about a strengthened national quality assurance system, with an enhanced role for information about quality and a closer focus on academic standards. This article provides a critical review of the main proposals.

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This paper offers the policy framework for research and research training in higher education. The proposals put forward are intended to benefit people participating in generation and application of research. Chapters cover: higher education research: a national investment; vision and principles for reform; roles and responsiblities for action; reforming competitive programmes; improving institutional management of research and research training; improving research training; a new framework for university research; the role of the Australian Research Council; implementation; and consultation. Show less