The Context

Work-based learning has come into prominence in recent years to depict a wide range of employability skills which increasingly employers and educational institutions are recognising as desirable to complement academic knowledge and skills so as to enable individuals to be better skilled and hence more productive in the workplace.

The concept and principle of work-based learning, and its many applications and practices, are not new. Work-based learning has traditionally underpinned much of our programmes of personal and career development, professional practice and vocational training. Many academic courses in both further and higher education include significant, and sometimes extensive, periods of ‘field’ practice, work placement and vocational training in an effort to develop particular attributes and acquire the necessary competencies (in scope, level and range) specific to the job role and employment sector.

Work based learning, as the name suggests, is generally studied mostly in the workplace and includes a significant amount of work based assessment, although it may also involve some attendance at an FE or HE institution. How much study is institutionally based will vary across different courses, but work based learning is typically for people in paid employment requiring enrolment on WBL courses to have the agreement of the employer, so WBL courses often lead to a vocational qualification related to that employment (promoting personal advancement and a skills economy). Work based qualifications include the Modern Apprenticeship, Advanced Modern Apprenticeship, NVQ, professional body qualifications, and Foundation degree.

Closely related to work based learning is vocational learning. However, the two are distinct. Vocational Learning is taught mostly within an institutional environment although they are likely to involve some work experience or a 'placement'. Part time learners might do vocational study while remaining in employment but mosr vocational students would be studying full time. Vocational qualifications include the BTEC certificate, NVQ, GNVQ, and Foundation Degree.

Vocational and work based students are statistically less likely to progress into Higher Education. Consequently, vocational and work based progression routes into HE are an increasing priority for widening participation under the Aimhigher initiative. In particular, the government wishes to emphasise progression to Foundation Degrees. Foundation degrees were introduced in 2001/2 and are employment-related HE qualifications at sub-honours degree level. They are two year qualifications with the flexibility to attract students already employed in the workplace. Foundation degrees can facilitate progression into an honours degree programme (with an honours degree requiring about 15 months further study after a foundation degree).

What role does FACE Play?

FACE as an organisation has been a longstanding advocate for the identification and recognition of all kinds of learning - formal, non formal and informal as well as academic, professional and vocational learning - wherever it takes place- in academic institutions, in the workplace or in the community.

Over the years, successive Governments, working with both sides of industry, have introduced radical reforms in education and training. Those reforms have been accompanied by parallel reforms in trades union legislation – all introduced and developed as part of the overall strategy to upskill the nation’s workforce, to increase productivity, to maintain our economic prosperity and to enable us to remain competitive in the global marketplace.

Today, work-based learning occupies a central place in the Government’s strategies for Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning. It underpins much of the Learning & Skills Council's Workforce Development Strategy and the Department of Education and Skills' Graduate Apprenticeship initiative initially supported by development funds from the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Work-based learning is increasingly being incorporated into new types of qualifications such as Modern Apprenticeships, Higher Modern Apprenticeships, Graduate Apprenticeships and Foundation Degrees (with legislative and financial support from Government) in an effort to produce more ‘rounded’ individuals for the growing and changing needs of industry at all levels.

New employer bodies have also been created to support and sustain the overall effort to upskill the nation’s workforce and to address the specific problem of skill shortages in the workforce. National Training Organisations have been replaced by a new system of Sector Skills Councils operating under the umbrella of the Sector Skills Development Agency. Much of the work of these organisations is concerned with work-based learning and workforce development of different kinds.

The work of the Universities Vocational Awards Council (UVAC) in recent years has been invaluable in raising the profile of work-based learning and vocational training qualifications and in gaining wider recognition of these qualifications as valid entry routes into higher education.