Universities, Work-based Learning and Issues about Knowledge

Abstract

This article, written before but in anticipation of the Dearing report into Higher Education in the United Kingdom looks at the emergence of an advocacy of work-based learning in the context of increasing pressure for change in higher education over the preceding 30 years. It argues that successive government agencies have-in their enthusiasm to promote work-based learning-greatly oversimplified the complexity of the knowledge that ensues from learning in the workplace. The article works towards a tentative diagrammatic description of the complexity of occupational knowledge. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.