Governments harnessing the power of data to get ‘value for money’: a simulation study of England’s Office for Students B3 Proceed Metric

Immersed in the Transitioning Higher Education Sector: The Impact of Transitions in the Higher Education Sector in England on Staff and Students

“…Within the neoliberal, marketised university the academic is reconfigured as a facilitator with responsibility for nurturing the skills development that graduate workers of the future will be required to demonstrate when they take up their rightful place in the workplace (Ball, 2013). Academic courses which seemingly have no direct link with employment are threatened with closure (Bradley & Quigley, 2023) and therefore the academics who teach on these courses face the ongoing threat of redundancy. Their subjects and identities as academics are called into question, and reductionist approaches to evaluating teaching quality through using graduate employability as a proxy for teaching quality result in increased accountability for staff who teach on those courses.…”

“…Examples of these transitions, are 'unpalatable' (Bradley & Quigley, 2023, p.1292) and include courses being closed down, new vocational courses being developed, re-designing academic programmes to emphasise employability skills, re-shaping the roles of lecturers and personal tutors to ensure that there is a greater emphasis on employability and the introduction of work-based placements on all programmes in some universities as a marketing technique (Bradley & Quigley, 2023). However, these transitions for the institution also result in transitions for students in that they are re-positioned as graduate workers of the future who can take their rightful place within a neoliberal, marketised economy.…”

“…They are quickly required to adapt to neoliberal curricula, neoliberal pedagogical approaches and neoliberal approaches to assessment that are different to what they have experienced prior to university. The reconceptualisation of students as customers (Adisa et al, 2022;Guilbault, 2016) and the repositioning of students as highly skilled workers of the future (Bradley & Quigley, 2023) also results in identity transitions.…”

Supporting Widening Participation Students Without Creating Dependency or Leaving Them Unprepared for Work in the Neoliberal Era

“…Widening participation and educational opportunities differentiated by class are often viewed through a Eurocentric or Western lens, however, Ni Chorcora et al (2023, p.2) show that "International studies highlight how access to higher education is not evenly distributed across all groups in society, with social class continuing to influence student pathways from secondary school". In a marketised higher education sector, there are increasing existential threats for institutions whose graduates do not meet expected employment or income levels (Bradley & Quigley, 2023). When a university caters predominantly to widening participation students and/or offers courses which are socially valuable but poorly paid (for example, social work, nursing, and humanities), then the threat is exacerbated by deeply entrenched structural inequalities (Byrne, 2022).…”

University students' perceptions of graduate employer selection tests

“…The increasing recognition and importance of graduate employability is demonstrated by new government measures such as the "PROCEED" metric developed by employment 15 months after graduating. There have been suggestions that this metric may be used to regulate quality standards for UK universities (Bradley et al, 2023;Dickinson, 2021). Similarly, Australia has also introduced performance-based funding for universities which depends in part on graduate outcomes (Wellings et al, 2019).…”