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Franchised provision of higher education has been under the spotlight in recent times. Without shying away from the challenges faced by those delivering successful franchise arrangements, this paper shows how important franchising can be in extending access to higher education. The authors explain what protections need to be in place to ensure franchise arrangements work out for students. They end with clear recommendations to encourage more collaboration between franchisors, franchisees and regulators, such as the Office for Students.

The academic professoriate is a determinant of successful higher education systems. Yet, recently, worsening conditions of employment, deteriorating salaries, and threats to job security have made the academic profession less attractive, especially to young scholars, in several countries. This paper investigates the salaries as well as the recruitment and retention procedures in public higher education institutions from a cross country perspective. The UK, Germany, France, and Italy are adopted as case studies to determine the attractiveness of European higher education systems. The evolution over the last decade creates an extremely variegated picture.

Intersectionality highlights that different aspects of individuals' identities are not independent of each other. Instead, they interact to create unique identities and experiences, which cannot be understood by analysing each identity dimension separately or in isolation from their social and historical contexts. Intersectional approaches in this way question the common classification of individuals into groups (male vs. female, immigrant vs. native etc.), which raises important implications for the policy-making process. In education, analyses with an intersectional lens have the potential to lead to better tailored and more effective policies and interventions related to participation, learning outcomes, students' attitudes towards the future, identification of needs, and socio-emotional well-being. Consequently, as elaborated in this paper, some countries have adjusted their policies in the areas of governance, resourcing, developing capacity, promoting school-level interventions and monitoring, to account for intersectionality. Gaps and challenges related to intersectional approaches are also highlighted.

We study whether autonomous schools, which are publicly funded but can operate more independently than government-run schools, affect student achievement and school segregation across 15 countries over 16 years. Our triple-differences regressions exploit between-grade variation in the share of students attending autonomous schools within a given country and year. While autonomous schools do not affect overall achievement, effects are positive for high-socioeconomic status students and negative for immigrants. Impacts on segregation mirror these findings, with evidence of increased segregation by socioeconomic and immigrant status. Rather than creating "a rising tide that lifts all boats," autonomous schools increase inequality

In this HEPI Report, Nick Petford, Robert Griggs and Terry Neville explore the rationale and development of the University of Northampton's Waterside Campus, one of the UK's most ambitious university relocation projects. They conclude with a series of lessons learned.

This HEPI Report includes two contrasting views on recent higher education policies and alternatives to the status quo. In Part One, Roger Brown argues neoliberal policies have damaged English higher education in recent decades -- and continue to do so. He says neoliberalism has many adverse effects, including 'increased stratification, the commodification of learning and (for some groups) reduced participation'. In Part Two, Nick Hillman questions if it actually makes sense to paint recent reforms as neoliberal and suggests a wholly different approach might not bring the benefits that many people expect to see. Furthermore, he argues that supply-side reform has not yet gone far enough. [Foreword by Chris Husbands.]

Calls for increased monitoring and evaluation of education policies and practices have not, so far, included widespread and consistent assessments of the inclusiveness of education settings. Measuring inclusion in education has proven to be a challenging exercise, due not only to the complexity and different uses of the concept, but also to its holistic nature. Indeed, measuring inclusion implies analysing a variety of policy areas within education systems, while also considering the different roles of the system, the school and the classroom. This paper discusses the application of the input-process-outcome model to the measurement of inclusion in education, and key indicators that can be adopted by education systems and schools to this end. It makes considerations relevant to policy makers when designing indicators to measure inclusion, such as the extent of their application, the constraints related to data disaggregation and the relevance of intersectional approaches to inclusion.

Climate change and natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, and geopolitical shocks have increasingly disrupted school education around the world in recent years. Whether leading to school closures, school destructions or repeated interruptions in students' learning experiences, these external shocks have translated into lost learning opportunities for students. In this context, education systems face heightened pressure to become ever more resilient, enhance the efficiency of public spending and address emerging learning gaps. This working paper highlights key education strategies for helping students catch up on lost learning opportunities and bridge learning gaps, based on a review of research and policy evidence from OECD and non-OECD countries. It examines a range of academic strategies to address learning gaps, including: (1) adapting instructional strategies and pedagogies to individual needs; (2) extending and adapting the time of instruction; and (3) providing curricular flexibility and enabling fluid learning pathways within the school system. It provides research evidence on the effectiveness of such strategies, together with examples of their large-scale implementation and cost-effectiveness considerations. While this paper presents programmes of general interest for all countries, a separate policy brief targets learning recovery strategies for students in Ukraine.

This government's Levelling Up mission for schools is that, by 2030, 90% of children will leave primary school having achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, up from 65% in 2019. In addition, this white paper sets an ambition to increase the national GCSE average grade in both English language and in maths from 4.5 in 20193 to 5, for all secondary school pupils by 2030. In this report it is estimated the economic returns associated with achieving these ambitions. To achieve the Levelling Up mission, around one in four pupils will need to make sufficient improvements in Key Stage 2 (KS2) attainment by 2030 to reach the expected standard. It is estimated that the size of the attainment improvement will need to be equivalent to 0.87 of a standard deviation, or around 10 months of progress.

This research paper is one in a series produced as part of the Cedefop project The changing nature and role of VET (2016-18). The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of how CVET is conceptualised in various international level policy documents and how it is referred to across countries. It discusses national conceptions of CVET, the providers, participation by IVET graduates in non-formal education and training (NFE), and participation of adults in VET education institutions in European Union Member States, Iceland and Norway. The paper describes how the provision of CVET by different types of provider has changed over the past two decades, discussing the main drivers of this change and speculating about possible future trends. One of the main findings is that there are many dominant conceptions of CVET across Europe and the use of this term is not consistent, sometimes not even within countries. [The research was carried out by a consortium led by 3s Unternehmensberatung GmbH, led by Dr Jorg Markowitch; the consortium includes the Danish Technological Institute, the Institute of Employment Research (University of Warwick), the Institute of International and Social Studies (Tallinn University) and Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) in Germany is supporting the project as a subcontractor.]

Many factors influence students' experiences in upper secondary education and beyond, including upper secondary curricula, programme design and support for students. But a good transition from earlier levels of education is the first, essential step in a successful journey through upper secondary education and into further education and/or employment. The design of transition systems can mitigate existing inequities in education, but it can also accentuate them. Transitions can also influence student well-being. They can have either a negative impact, for example through highly competitive systems that can be stressful for students and narrow their development, or a positive impact, for example by helping to construct young people's sense of agency and ability to make informed decisions about their future. This paper looks at how countries manage students' transition into upper secondary education and the main policy implications of each transition point and how they can influence student outcomes.

In her April 2010 NILOA paper, "Opening Doors to Faculty Involvement in Assessment," Pat Hutchings called for institutions to involve students in assessment, citing the potential to increase faculty engagement. In Curtis and Anderson (2020), the first author interviewed numerous partnership experts in both the United Kingdom and the United States regarding student-faculty partnerships and the extent to which students currently engage in the assessment process. Findings from the study make it clear that there currently exists little student-faculty partnership in assessment at the program- or system-levels. Combining existing research on partnership and the expert responses from the Curtis et al. study, we present a framework, based on prototyping, for developing student-faculty partnerships in program-level student learning outcomes assessment.

This paper provides an overview of government policy on young people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) across the four UK nations. The paper argues that policy in England on this topic is less well-developed and coherent than in the other UK nations, and that the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic will serve to amplify the negative impacts of a set of underlying changes that have been taking place in the youth labour market and in employers' recruitment and selection practices. In addition, the paper notes that in much of the activity directed at reducing those with NEET status has been funded through the EU's European Social Fund and that uncertainty now clouds the continuance of these schemes, and that in England government has increasingly relied on the charities to help fill gaps in outreach and provision.

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the first to assess consistency of results by agency. We find results vary by agent, but consistent with Flynn effects, gains are larger in math than reading, except for the most recent period. Non-whites progress at a faster pace. Socio-economically disadvantaged white, black, and Hispanic students make greater progress when tested in elementary school, but that advantage attenuates and reverses itself as students age. We discuss potential moderators.

Which occupations are best for wellbeing? There is a large literature on earnings differentials, but less attention has been paid to occupational differences in non-pecuniary rewards. However, information on both types of rewards is needed to understand the dispersion of wellbeing across occupations. We analyse subjective wellbeing in a large representative sample of UK workers to construct a measure of "full earnings", the sum of earnings and the value of non-pecuniary rewards, in 90 different occupations. We first find that the dispersion of earnings underestimates the extent of inequality in the labour market: the dispersion of full earnings is one-third larger than the dispersion of earnings. Equally, the gender and ethnic gaps in the labour market are larger than data on earnings alone would suggest, and the true returns to completed secondary education (though not to a degree) are underestimated by earnings differences on their own. Finally, we show that our main results are similar, and stronger, for a representative sample of US workers. [Funding for this report was provided by an Écoles Universitaires de Recherche, EUR (University Research Schools, EUR) grant.]

There are increasing calls for the UCAS personal statement to be reformed. These calls are based on the claim that the current personal statement gives unfair advantages to more privileged applicants within higher education admissions. While this topic has attracted political attention, there is much about the personal statement that remains unknown. Of the evidence that does exist, it suggests that applicants from under-represented backgrounds face larger challenges with their personal statements, and that this results in fewer offers from more selective higher education providers. However, there has been less attention on understanding applicants' perspectives and the specific challenges they face in writing their UCAS personal statement. This report offers two new pieces of evidence to address this gap: (1) By analysing 164 personal statement drafts from 83 applicants from under-represented backgrounds, this report outlines the challenges applicants face when writing a UCAS personal statement. Particular challenges were found on including an appropriate academic discussion, with 83 per cent of drafts failing to supply an evidence-based opinion about a topic in their subject area. Similarly, applicants struggled to organise their statement in an effective way, with 35 per cent of applicants struggling in at least one draft to write with cohesive paragraphs; and (2) Surveys and interviews with under-represented applicants. The applicants describe three main challenges in writing their statements: (a) the opening paragraph; (b) meeting the character limit; and (c) knowing what would impress the admissions tutors. Applicants tell of the large toll of the personal statement, with some spending 30 to 40 hours on it, which requires sacrifices in both their studies and their wider lives. Combining this new evidence and the existing literature, the report then assesses the case for reforming the UCAS personal statement by considering its compatibility with Universities UK and GuildHE's "Fair admissions code of practice." Four options for reform are considered, and it is argued that a series of short-response questions is most compatible with the "Fair admissions code of practice." To be compatible, these short-response questions should assess 'baseline' suitability for a course rather than being used to distinguish between applicants that demonstrate competencies above this. The report concludes with three example short-response questions, arguing that these have considerable potential to increase fairness in higher education admissions. [For the related policy note, see ED630778.]

The main focus of the paper is on youth unemployment and wider transitions into work, but it also has some thoughts on adult unemployment and re-training. This paper is founded upon a basic assumption -- namely that if the public money available across the United Kingdom to support measures around skills and unemployment is finite, then targeting those most at risk and defining which kinds of measures are the most cost-effective will be important. The information already available (Wilson et al, 2020) suggests that it is known which sectors, occupations, localities and kinds of people will most likely be hardest hit by the coming recession. The main issues will be deciding: (1) What groups to prioritise, which interventions will work best and most cost-effectively, and also which can be delivered to swiftly address the immediate problems liable to emerge as the furlough scheme is wound down and school, college and university leavers hit a disrupted labour market; and (2) what additional measures will be needed in the longer term as some groups experience extended periods of unemployment.

The purpose of this brief paper is to present initial findings from the recently collected London School of Economics and Political Science-Centre for Economic Performance (LSE-CEP) Social Mobility survey, which was undertaken as part of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) project 'Generation COVID and Social Mobility: Evidence and Policy'. These are the first results from a project that is producing a detailed assessment of COVID-19's impact on education and economic inequalities and offering an assessment for the longer term consequences for social mobility in the UK. Alongside the survey findings, the authors have also analysed economic and education outcomes of individuals in April 2020 in the Understanding Society (USoc) national household panel data. Before the pandemic, younger generations were already facing declining absolute social mobility and real wage decline (Elliot Major and Machin, 2018, 2020a). Education inequalities were also widening. Here new findings are presented on inequalities in the workplace and the classroom that have emerged following the pandemic.

Students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex or somewhere else on the gender/sexuality spectrum (LGBTQI+) are among the diverse student groups in need of extra support and protection in order to succeed in education and reach their full potential. Because they belong to a minority that is often excluded by heteronormative/cisgender people, they are often the targets of physical and psychological harassment. Such discrimination can place them at risk for isolation, reduced academic achievement, and physical and mental harm. This paper provides a brief history of how the LGBTQI+ population has often been misunderstood and labelled in order to understand challenges faced by students who identify as a part of this population. It continues by considering supportive educational policies and programmes implemented from national to local levels across OECD countries. Finally, the paper considers policy gaps and discusses policy implications to strengthen equity and inclusion for LGBTQI+ students.

Applications to local authorities for homelessness assistance per head are significantly higher in university towns and cities in England compared with areas without a university (1,428 per 100,000, compared with 1,007). Rates of households living in temporary accommodation are more than twice as high (475 per 100,000, compared with 218). The prevalence of rough sleeping is more than three times greater (13 per 100,000, compared with 5). Similar patterns are found in Scotland and, to some degree, in Wales. In this Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) Debate Paper Greg Hurst, a former Education Editor at The Times, calls on universities to do much more to tackle homelessness in a variety of ways. [Foreword written by Mary Stuart.]

Key competences are important for personal development, employment, integration into society and lifelong learning. They are transversal and form the basis for all other competences. Acquiring key competences is possible through various learning pathways, including vocational education and training (VET). However, little is known at the European level of how VET supports the key competence development. This research paper investigates three key competences: digital, multilingual and literacy. It analyses the extent to which they are included in initial upper secondary VET in the EU-27, Iceland, Norway and the UK, as well as national policies supporting their development since 2011. It focuses on four areas of intervention: standards, programme delivery, assessment and teacher/trainer competences.

The European Union is likely the most far-developed cross-border public space for higher education. The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the European Research Area (ERA) both span an even larger number of countries including associate and partner countries of the EU. Based on shared European values, such as academic freedom, cross-border cooperation, and mobility, these policy frameworks have been developed in Europe over the last decades and with much success. HE systems in this area are thus well-positioned to benefit from cross-border mobility and collaboration but may at the same time face a certain loss of control over HE, for instance with respect to access due to the cross-border flows of students. This seems to make them vulnerable to populist tendencies and neo-nationalist politics seeking to inhibit the free movement of students, scholars, and data. Such tendencies have never been completely absent on the "old continent" but resurged over the uneven outcomes of globalization, the effects of the global financial and consequent Euro crisis, and the refugee crisis. Meanwhile, the impact of the coronavirus crisis is still by and large unknown. Populist tendencies seem now to be turning against the EU, with its freedom of movement for persons (i.e. open borders) as one of its cornerstones and are therefore of concern for the HE sector. Countries such as the UK, Switzerland, Denmark, and the Netherlands have a different position in the European landscape but are all struggling with the complexity of combining the virtues of an open system with constrained national sovereignty. Sovereignty is required in terms of steering capacity in order to balance access, cost, and quality, i.e. the well-known "higher education trilemma." In open systems this is challenged by the "globalization trilemma", which states that countries cannot have national sovereignty, (hyper)globalization and democracy at the same time. How are the EU, its Member States, and the HE sector responding? Will the Union stay united (i.e. Brexit)? Are the legal competencies of the EU in HE strong enough? What about the many European university associations, leagues, and networks? And what do the millions of (former) Erasmus students have to say?

This paper examines inequalities in the match between student quality and university quality using linked administrative data from schools, universities and tax authorities. We analyse two measures of match at the university-subject (course) level, based on student academic attainment, and graduate earnings. We find that students from lower socio-economic groups systematically undermatch for both measures across the distribution of attainment, with particularly stark socio-economic gaps for the most undermatched. While there are negligible gender gaps in academic match, high-attaining women systematically undermatch in terms of expected earnings, largely driven by subject choice.

This article explores the efficacy and cost effectiveness of New Labour's skills-based policies to help low paid workers adjust to the pressures generated by globalisation, of which the leading example was Train to Gain (T2G). It also analyses the more general issue of how, why and under what circumstances education, training and skills can help imbue low paid workers with greater bargaining power within the labour market.

From 2020 the health and relationships aspects of Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education will be compulsory in UK schools for adolescents. However less is known about how it can be taught in an effective manner. We examine, through a randomised trial, the impact of an evidenced based health related quality of life (HRQoL) curriculum called "Healthy Minds" that ran in 34 high schools in England over a four-year period. We find robust evidence that "Healthy Minds" positively augments many physical health domains of treated adolescents. We also find some evidence that "Healthy Minds" positively affects behaviour, but has no significant impact on emotional wellbeing. We find notable gender effects, strongly favouring boys. We also present evidence that "Healthy Minds" changes career aspirations, with those exposed to treatment being less likely to choose competitive work and more likely to choose work that involves "people-skills". Overall our work illustrates the potential for later childhood interventions to promote HRQoL and develop the career aspirations of adolescents.

Since UNESCO's Salamanca Declaration in 1994, inclusive education has progressively attracted attention in international debates around education policy. While some evidence exists on the positive impact that inclusive education reforms can have on the academic and personal outcomes of diverse students -- and in particular of students with special education needs -- limited information is available on the economic sustainability of such reforms. Starting from the literature on the correlations between education and individuals' life outcomes, this paper reviews the existing evidence on the potential benefits and costs of inclusive education reforms. Specifically, the paper discusses the evidence on the shortcomings of current education settings for diverse groups of students -- with specific sections on students with special education needs; immigrant and refugee students; ethnic groups, national minorities and Indigenous peoples; gifted students; female and male students; and LGBTQI+ (which stands for 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex') students. It highlights the individual and societal costs deriving from the low academic, social and emotional outcomes of these students and the socio-economic costs these yield for societies. Where possible, the paper also presents evidence on the effects of inclusive education reforms on diverse student groups.

Many students still leave school without a good grasp of basic literacy, despite the negative implications for future educational and labour market outcomes. We evaluate a programme that involves changing how resources are used within classrooms to reinforce the teaching of literacy. Specifically, the programme involves training teaching assistants to deliver a tightly structured package of materials to groups of young children. Further, we compare the effectiveness of computer-aided instruction using available software with the paper equivalent. We implement the experiment in the context of a Randomised Control Trial in English schools. Both interventions have a short-term impact on children's reading scores, although the effect is bigger for the paper intervention and more enduring in the subsequent year. This paper shows how teaching assistants can be used to better effect within schools, and at a low cost.

This small-scale qualitative research study examines the extent to which teachers involved in Global North-South School Partnerships engage with learning about shared colonial histories. Existing research in this field suggests that teachers' lack of knowledge and confidence leads to historical context being largely absent from such projects. Further, it is suggested that such omissions can fuel unhelpful stereotypes and assumptions about Global South regions and peoples. In this study, Postcolonial theory has been used to reflect on the importance of including historical colonial context for learning in Global North-South Partnerships and its potential for helping to develop historically conscious practice and a more critical view of development and global issues. The study involved interviews with two UK-based teachers involved in school partnerships to discuss and explore the challenges and barriers they faced in engaging with historical colonial relationships in Global North-South Partnerships and also the benefits to diverse British communities. The recommendations build on the findings from these discussions and aim to contribute to shifting Global North-South Partnerships from sites that potentially uphold, reinforce and reproduce colonial framing, to sites that critically engage with colonial history and its legacy. [This paper was published by Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning in collaboration with the Development Education Research Centre (DERC). The Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning (CCGL) programme is funded by the British Council and UK aid.]

This research project aims to evaluate the impact that a British Council Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning project had on the children and parents' stereotypical views and images of the Middle East. This study focuses on a largely monocultural school in rural Lincolnshire and a large, diverse school in the centre of Beirut, Lebanon. It begins by identifying the children and parents' initial perceptions and views of the Middle East. After a series of small-scale projects to widen children's knowledge of the area, pupils and parents' perceptions are collected again, using the same method. These results are then analysed and compared to see if the project can impact on the stereotypical views of the parents and pupils. [This paper was published by Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning in collaboration with the Development Education Research Centre (DERC). The Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning (CCGL) programme is funded by the British Council and UK aid.]

Almost in a blink of the eye the policy focus on the 'knowledge' economy, with mass ranks of high skilled workers, has given way to claims of widespread 'technological unemployment'. This Working Paper will examine competing claims on the relationship between automation, skills and the future of work. It examines the research evidence on the scale of job losses anticipated as a consequence of digital disruption. It presents three scenarios of the impact of digital disruption on future skill requirements, before considering how evidence on automation and digital disruption is used to influence and inform UK government policy interventions on skills, employment and labour markets. In conclusion, we recommend caution in interpreting existing evidence. While high profile reports on digital disruption make for eye-catching headlines, they make for poor policy formulation. A key message is that technology is not destiny. It is human decisions that will determine the future of work.

The aim of the OECD Career Readiness project is to identify patterns of teenage attitudes and activities that are associated with better transitions into employment by analysing multiple national longitudinal datasets. This paper looks for further evidence of the link between teenage activities, experiences and career-related thinking and adult career outcomes by analysing 10 new datasets from eight countries. Overall, the results of this paper find further evidence that secondary school students who explore, experience and think about their futures in work frequently encounter lower levels of unemployment, receive higher wages and are happier in their careers as adults. The findings of this paper are analysed together with the evidence from the two previous working papers of the Career Readiness project, concluding that there is international evidence to support 11 out of the 14 potential indicators that were explored as indicators of career readiness.

This research project aims to illustrate the journey of school partnerships between primary schools in Cumbria, UK and Moshi, Tanzania. Using a qualitative approach, the study shares the processes involved from making first contact with an oversees link school to expanding a successful model of partnership working to a cluster of schools in both countries. The shift of moving from a charitable giving approach to one of social justice, and how this has been achieved, is a suggested method for other schools who currently have school partnerships or are due to embark on the journey. This research focuses on three main themes: sustainability; reciprocity, and equity. By using an insider researcher to construct the narrative of the research and explore the themes, an honest, subjective insight highlighting the successes, obstacles and scope for longevity is shared.

The aim of this research was to assess how the COVID-19 global pandemic impacted overseas school partnerships in 2020, through to January 2021. It was undertaken with teachers involved in the British Council Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning (CCGL) programme to provide insight into how and why partnerships have been impacted. It also looks at what these teachers perceive to be the challenges that make it difficult for schools to maintain partnerships in a time of global crisis and provides examples of how schools have overcome these challenges. Online questionnaires were used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data and were distributed to teachers in UK using a network of British Council Local Advisors. 52 questionnaire responses were collected and analysed to explore the impact of the global pandemic on overseas school partnerships.

In this HEPI debate paper on the media and higher education, Rosemary Bennett provides a commentary on the interaction of the two sectors and proposes ideas on how universities might best engage with journalists to promote themselves and their research. [Foreword by Adam Tickell.]

The article focuses on providing details of policy papers published in the past week, covering topics such as the 2024 pay award for teachers and leaders, the Lifelong Learning Entitlement overview, and duties to report child abuse in England. It categorizes the papers into sections, including those from the UK Government, parliamentary libraries, and other think tanks or non-governmental bodies, offering comprehensive insights into recent policy developments within the education sector.

This research paper is the fifth in a series produced as part of the Cedefop project The changing nature and role of VET (2016-18). Based on comparative analysis of labour force survey data from 2014, the report analyses the vocational effect on labour market and education outcomes, asking whether any advantages conferred by vocational qualifications in early career would be offset by disadvantages later in life. The report explores the functioning of the safety net and the diversion effects across countries, demonstrating how these vary considerably with the specific institutional structure of schooling and work-based training. The results indicate that VET graduates are potentially sacrificing the longer-term gains associated with further education in favour of short-term benefits. [This research was carried out by a consortium led by 3s Unternehmensberatung GmbH and including the Danish Technological Institute, the Institute of Employment Research (University of Warwick), the Institute of International and Social Studies (Tallinn University) and Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini. The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) in Germany is supporting the project as a subcontractor.]

The 2020 EUA Learning & Teaching Thematic Peer Group on "Meeting skills and employability demands" explored how universities can ensure that their study programmes reflect the dynamic demands of society and the labour market, and address skills demands throughout the student experience. In this paper, employability is considered as part of universities' mission to educate and to contribute in general to future graduates' personal and professional development, including in lifelong learning. It outlines challenges associated with this mission and provides recommendations to tackle them.

This paper examines evidence from the HESA DLHE six-month Censuses and 3½ year ('longitudinal') surveys relating to three aspects of the flows of those who have left university with Higher Education Engineering qualifications, to test the robustness of the conclusions of SKOPE Research Paper No. 122 (Dixon, 2015), which showed strong evidence that most Engineering graduates do not go on to work in the sectors of the economy that might be expected, in particular in the 'natural' Manufacturing sub-sector. Specifically, the paper examines three questions: (1) whether evidence of starting salary levels for those from particular disciplines going into particular sectors could explain the relative flows (on the assumption that higher salaries for graduate vacancies in a particular sector would attract more applications); (2) whether evidence of sector destinations three years on from the (six-month after graduation) Census data analysed in Dixon (2015) would show up significantly different levels of 'leakage'; and (3) whether those entering employment having completed Taught Masters (as opposed to First Degree) courses in particular Engineering disciplines would tend (in the light of their apparent greater interest and deeper understanding in the specific discipline) to enter the "expected" sectors more than their Bachelors colleagues. The "bottom line" answers to these questions is that -- with rather minor exceptions -- none of the relevant broader evidence from HESA DLHE data over a ten-year period significantly questions the very considerable 'leakage', away from the 'natural' Manufacturing sub-sector, that was found and presented in Dixon (2015). (1) There is "some" correlation between the "average salaries offered" (by employers in each 'destination' sector to cohorts from each Engineering discipline examined) and the "size of the flows" from each discipline into each sector, but it is limited and rarely strong. While there might be reasons why average salary differences might not be large enough to provide a sufficient incentive for Engineering graduates to choose one sector over another, evidence of considerably greater correlation would have been helpful to justify the traditional response of classical economics to employers' concerns about shortages: "offer more money"! (2) While there are sample size issues constraining the statistical precision of comparisons between the two DLHE surveys, these have been addressed, and comparisons of the "linear flows" of graduates from each discipline into the natural Manufacturing sub-sector show (a) comparatively very small differences, and (b) on balance, slightly "greater" 'leakage' three years on; and (3) More MSc's in "Automotive" and "Aerospace Engineering" have, over the ten years examined, then gone into the "Manufacture of Motor Vehicles"... and "Air and Space craft manufacture" (respectively) than BEng's from these disciplines. However, for the other disciplines compared, there is little difference, and -- in terms of entry into Manufacturing as a whole, for the most recent year in the period - the fraction of the disciplinary cohorts entering "any type of Manufacturing" is slightly "higher" for MSc's than First Degree (FD) graduates in "three" Engineering disciplines, though "lower" for MSc's than FD's in "four"! This new evidence, therefore, only serves to "strengthen" the great importance of NOT assuming linear flows of Engineering graduates into the "natural" Manufacturing sub-sectors corresponding to their discipline, in particular in policy responses to reports of shortages from such sub-sectors.

The UK's overall school budget has been protected in real terms but does not provide for funding per pupil to increase in line with inflation. Because pupil numbers are increasing, large falls in expenditure per pupil are expected over the next few years unless more funding is allocated. The situation facing post-16 education is a lot worse. A more widespread adoption of grammar schools is very likely to increase socio-economic segregation by school type and is unlikely to lead to any increase in average educational attainment in the country. Although increasing intermediate skills among young people and adults is needed, many concerns have been raised about the how apprenticeship policy is being implemented. This includes an emphasis on quantity over quality and differences in the provision of training opportunities for large employers compared with small and medium-sized enterprises.

With climate change continuing to be the biggest global threat, this paper argues that universities and colleges should take a leading role in putting the world on a more sustainable footing. Making use of the latest research and powerful case studies, the author makes a series of recommendations for students, staff and policymakers that would deliver a new approach, from changes to day-to-day operations to the core educational mission and civic role of the university. These recommendations include: (1) Redesigning the day-to-day operations of universities and colleges; (2) Reinvigorating the civic role of institutions; (3) Reshaping the knowledge structures of the university; and (4) Refocusing the educational mission of the institution to support students.

The digital revolution and automation are accelerating changes in the labour market and in workplace skills, changes that are further affected by fluctuations in international and regional economic cycles and employment opportunity. These factors pose a universal policy challenge for all advanced economies and governments. In the workplace, people seek to acquire contemporary and relevant skills to gain employment and retain transferable skills to maintain employment. The central purpose of this paper is to investigate how other nations or regions are dealing with these issues. What approaches are they taking to understanding the mix and dynamics of the skills attained by individuals and, more broadly, the totality of skills that in aggregate constitute a highly capable and adaptable labour force, one that supports firm viability and greater national productivity. This research has examined a range of initiatives and approaches being developed or in use in selected countries, including the United States, Singapore and New Zealand, and agencies/organisations; for example, the European Commission and the Skills for the Information Age Foundation. In doing so, it showcases the good practices used to ensure that occupational-level skills information remains current and widely accessible. [For "Identifying Work Skills: International Case Summaries. Support Document," see ED579875.]