University challenge: learning to work with employer engagement

A number of reports have emerged from government and business recently which have set the employer engagement agenda for the HE sector. It is not the intention of this article to discuss individual reports (a list of key ones are to be found at the end), but to draw on some common themes and identify some issues for those who are tasked with making HE programmes employer and academia friendly. This article will outline some issues raised for universities by the employer engagement and workforce development agenda and the consequent impact upon programmes and work based learning (WBL) opportunities.

We acknowledge with grateful thanks to SEEDA for permitting article to be deposited on the repository.