Part‐time Higher Education: Employer Engagement Under Threat?

Abstract

Employer support for employees who are studying part‐time for higher education qualifications constitutes a form of indirect employer engagement with higher education institutions that has contributed strongly to the development of work‐related skills and knowledge over the years. However, this form of employer engagement with higher education institutions now seems to be in some jeopardy, with reduced employer willingness to subsidise high education course fees: partly because of slow economic growth since the 2008–09 recession and partly because of increases in tuition fees. These cutbacks in employer support for part‐time study may have contributed to the sharp decline reported in the numbers studying for part‐time undergraduate higher education qualifications in the United Kingdom since 2009. One important implication for policy‐makers is that, without new initiatives designed to encourage employer support for part‐time study, this form of education is now less likely to contribute to the adult skills upgrading required to bring United Kingdom skills up to the standards of leading industrial nations.

UK university part-time higher education: a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of undergraduate prospectuses

“…Because many part-time students undertake part-time study later in life to re-skill and already hold an ELQ, part-time study became a bad financial proposition for these learners. Furthermore, Mason (2014) documents that employer support for part-time study also declined in the period, making it increasingly hard for UK students to study part-time. Next to these factors (fee levels, the ELQ policy and employer support) other factors that may have led to the decline in part-time study in the UK are: poor economic returns, the economic downturn and a decline in leisure learning (Hubble & Bolton, 2017).…”

Employee engagement: exploring higher education non-tenure track faculty members’ perceptions

“…Higher education institutions are increasingly hiring non-tenure track employees to reduce budget impact of salary, benefits and long-term commitments (Mason, 2014). Currently, there is insufficient research studying non-tenure employees in higher education and their perceptions of engagement.…”

“…Byrne and MacDonagh (2017) state that further research could offer better understanding of faculty members engagement within a college setting. This analysis will help us better understand the growing population of non-tenure track full-time faculty employees and their engagement in the university setting (Mason, 2014;Frock, 2015). The literature suggests a need for future research to explore institutions of higher education and the various types of employees (faculty, student, staff, management, executive, union, non-union, part-time, etc.…”

Assessing economic impact and efficiency of higher education institutions

“…The education and research functions are two sides of the same coin; education develops the human resources to carry out research, while research makes a higher level of education possible (Mason, 2014). Recently, contributions to society have been demanded increasingly of HEIs (Cano & Ion, 2014).…”

“…Be švietimo, AMI atlieka mokslinius tyrimus ir prisideda prie visuomenės vystymosi (Alzadjali, 2018). Švietimas ugdo žmogiškuosius išteklius, kurie panaudojami moksliniams tyrimams atlikti, o moksliniai tyrimai užtikrina aukštesnį išsilavinimo lygį (Mason, 2014).…”