English higher education and its vocational zones

Abstract

Distinctions between academic, vocational and professional education inform but do not define the divisions of English higher education. Nevertheless, there are zones where courses, qualifications and institutions are specifically oriented to the world of work. These include most short-cycle higher education, large parts of undergraduate and postgraduate education and the higher level education and training undertaken in the workplace. Since the 1990s, government policies for higher education in England have sought to increase demand for work-focused qualifications while expecting universities and colleges to enhance the skills and employability of all their students. Measures targeted at sub-bachelor vocational education have been among the most radical, but with limited success in changing the balance of provision and participation. On the one side, these efforts confront ever-popular demand – domestic and international – for the bachelor degree and a legacy of ambivalence about the place of the vocational, technical and practical in higher education. On the other, these policies seek to establish ‘higher vocational education’ as a mission for institutions on both sides of the two-sector structure of higher and further education, despite a system architecture designed to reserve one sector for higher education and a further education sector for lower level programmes and qualifications.