In recent research we have noticed a growing engagement with apprenticeships amongst ISE members. In our Student Development Survey 2019 employers report that on average they have scaled up their recruitment of apprentices by 56% since 2016, while the number of graduates has only increased by 9%. Only time will tell if this heralds a new era in student recruitment, but the fact that 58% of respondents say that they are developing apprentices to do work that would have previously been done by graduates suggests that times are changing. However, as the apprenticeship route develops it is important for employers to think carefully about when they should recruit graduates and when they should recruit apprentices.

This paper discusses the experience of UK doctoral graduates in pursuing entrepreneurial careers: there is evidence that this applies to a substantial number - about 10% - of doctoral graduates. The nature of their experience was explored using 37 interviews with doctoral entrepreneurs. The research was funded by Vitae (www.vitae.ac.uk), an organization championing the personal, professional and career development of doctoral researchers and research staff in UK higher education. The stories that the participants tell suggest that doctoral entrepreneurship develops out of a complex interaction between the personality and skills of the entrepreneurs and the environment in which they operate. In particular, the authors argue that the participants have mobilized a mix of financial, social and educational capital in order to create and sustain their enterprises successfully.

This report presents interim evaluation findings on the implementation of the Gatsby Benchmarks (herewith referred to as the Benchmarks) for good career guidance with a sample of 16 pilot schools and colleges (herewith referred to as education providers) in the North East of England. These interim findings report progress made against the Benchmarks during the course of the pilot (autumn 2015 to autumn 2017), the enablers and barriers faced, and the impact of the Benchmarks on learners’ career readiness and attainment. The interim findings suggest the following: Timescale - Schools and colleges involved were able to make significant strides towards fully meeting most, if not all, Benchmarks within two years. To date Benchmark 2 (Learning from career and labour market information) and Benchmark 7 (Encounters with FE and HE) have seen the largest increase in the number of pilot education providers fully achieving them. Benchmark 3 (Addressing the needs of every pupil) and Benchmark 4 (Linking curriculum to careers) have the least number of pilot education providers fully achieving them. Positive impact on learners. Learners show an increase in some aspects of career readiness and tentative increases in some aspects of GCSE attainment. Effective implementation of the Benchmarks. This was enabled by the existence of a regional facilitator to support pilot education providers and strong provider leadership and robust organisational infrastructures. Key barriers were a lack of time and space (in the curriculum), a lack of funding and a lack of commitment at senior leadership level, which impacted on achieving a cultural shift in some education providers. Regional impact. The implementation of the Benchmarks is impacting more widely in the region with non-pilot education providers forming links with pilot providers to seek support on developing good career guidance in their settings. Furthermore, wider stakeholders such as local employers and providers of careers education were also using the Benchmarks to review and develop their services to schools/colleges. Emerging challenges: A noticeable challenge was how the term ‘meaningful’, in relation to encounters with employers and employees, was interpreted and how education providers monitor provision of such encounters.

In this article we examine the development of career guidance in Pakistani higher education. The article is primarily based on a review of the existing literature on career guidance in Pakistan, but also includes the consideration of some new data gathered from a review of higher education institutions websites and five case study interviews. It considers both local and global influences as relevant contexts for understanding how the development of career guidance in Pakistani higher education is taking place. Concerns about alignment between skills supply and demand provide key drivers both for the development of career guidance and for wider higher education reform. However the practice of career guidance in Pakistani higher education is shown to be lagging behind the policy aspirations, both due to limited investment and due to more fundamental cultural challenges that have yet to be fully addressed. If career guidance is going to continue to develop within Pakistan it will need to be strengthened by new policy and resources but also through the development of indigenous theories.

This article emerges from work undertaken with leaders from a local authority who took part in a programme entitled ‘Advanced Leadership in Integrated Children’s Services Environment’ or ALICSE programme. The aim of this course was to engage leaders and managers in thinking differently about their roles and to consider how they could make changes to their leadership practices to cope with the fast pace of change now enforced on the educational landscape. Through coconstruction of work-based knowledge and the application of integrated leadership theory with a local Higher Education Institution (HEI) during 2012, this research offers some insight into how a group of Local Authority (LA) teams have provided a de-centralised service for vulnerable families whilst maintaining and improving educational standards across the City’s primary schools. A range of leadership, improvement and process strategies are currently being piloted with inner city schools and presented in this paper as a series of vignettes which exemplify these strategies. By taking a more holistic, integrated approach to working with key personnel at both local authority and school level it has been possible to demonstrate a greater alignment between the different LA teams in respect of the support they are offering to the schools. These outcomes have arisen as a result of professional teams working on the development of a more autonomous approach to leadership based on a ‘can do’ attitude firmly embedded within a morally focused culture.

The purpose of this paper is to draw on concepts of female masculinityto interrogate how hegemonic gendering discourses, forms and performances are inscribed in neoliberal narratives of competency in higher education in the Western Hemisphere. Drawing on individual examples, the authors consider how these narratives are omnipresent in the sector, and systematically act to exclude those who do not conform. In doing so, the authors draw extensively on bodies of literature exploring gender/identity, and neo-liberalism. In particular, the paper draws on the work of Halberstam (1998, 2011), and of Drake (2015).There are comparatively few women in senior positions in Higher Education and the authors argue that as gendering institutions they reproduce hegemonic gendering discourses. The authors find that hegemonic gendering discourses are instrumental in maintaining and privileging specific forms and perceptions of masculinity and femininity as inscribed within and reproduced by perceptions of professional competency. There are comparatively few women in senior positions in Higher Education and the authors argue that as gendering institutions they reproduce hegemonic gendering discourses. The authors find that hegemonic gendering discourses are instrumental in maintaining and privileging specific forms and perceptions of masculinity and femininity as inscribed within and reproduced by perceptions of professional competency. This paper examines neo-liberal practices from a more nuanced perspective than some traditional polarised critiques which regard gender as a binary. In doing so, it contributes to debates on masculinity, but more importantly, opens discussions about the implications of gendering discourses for the role of the few women in senior positions in higher education institutions globally.

This paper reports on an ongoing project, being conducted in Guernsey, which is evaluating the medium term impact of a new curriculum model designed to enable more successful, and less precrious transitions to work for young people undertaking broad vocational education at level 1. Careers Education and Guidance (CEG) forms a central plank of the curriculum, in response to earlier research (Bathmaker, 2001; Atkins, 2009; Atkins et al, 2015) suggesting that young people undertaking programmes at this level have aspirations similar to their higher achieving peers, but lack the support, and cultural and social capital to realise those aspirations. The paper highlights the particular challenges faced by these young people, of whom 33% became NEET in 2015/16 (Guernsey College data), with particular reference to their career aspirations and the ways in which these are supported by the college. The paper positions the study as research for social justice, rather than socially just research (Atkins and Duckworth, 2019), but draws on theoretical concepts of social justice to inform the conduct of the study (e.g. Lincoln and Denzin, 2013). Theoretically, it draws on, amongst others, the work of Bourdieu (e.g.1990) Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) , Hodkinson et al (1996) and Hodkinson (e.g. 1996; 1998; 2008).

Access to decent work is an important goal for policymakers and for individuals navigating theirworking lives. Decent work is a career goal for individuals and a priority for many employers andpolicy makers seeking to promote social justice. Decent work forms part of the United Nationssustainable development goals and the International Labor Organisation's (ILO) Decent WorkAgenda. Thefindings of the Taylor Review (2017) have helped to prioritize decent work as apolicy aim for the current UK government.Although macro-level indicators have been well developed to monitor access to decent work,there have been few studies which attempt to understand decent work at the individual level. Asa result, our studies explore the measurement and definition of decent work in the UK. Study 1investigates whether the Decent Work Scale (DWS) is a valid measure for use in the UK and Study2 uses a qualitative approach to further understand what decent work means to working peoplein the UK. Study results may have implications for the assessment and conceptualization of de-cent work among this specific population.

This article explores tensions between the policies and practice of inclusion and the lived experiences of disabled young people in education. Drawing on the narratives of two young men who participated in a small pilot study, it utilises theoretical concepts related to disability, structure and agency, and power and control, as it explores the ways in which inclusion can create subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) forms of exclusion. Focusing on the young men's experiences of further and higher education, it is argued that inclusive practices and policies, however well intentioned, can create new and subtle forms of marginalisation through the structures and discourse intended to address exclusion. I conclude by questioning whether, in a diverse and disparate society, in which all our lives are defined by the extent to which we are more or less equal than others, inclusion can ever be anything other than an illusory concept.

The impact of undertaking a professional doctorate on professionals is now well documented (Butcher and Sieminski, 2006; Wellington and Sikes, 2006). However, the cultural and pedagogical challenge the EdD brings to the traditional research PhD is less well recognised. The aim of this paper is to examine the cultural and pedagogical changes currently being experienced by one University in two aspects: (1) from the ‘master/apprentice’ (Professor/student) model traditionally reserved for PhD degrees to a more flexible and responsive pedagogy; (2) managing the integration of the EdD within already well-established university systems that do not easily support its wide and diverse approach. This paper raises issues related to the means of securing robust doctoral provision, whilst maintaining diversity across a range of doctoral routes, which complements a work-based learning and widening participation agenda. Further, it challenges university staff to develop an understanding of an emerging pedagogy which is equivalent to, but different from, a traditional PhD research route. Finally there are considerations of making more effective operational working practices related to administration and support of doctoral programmes perhaps effected by locating them all under a central Research Office, rather than within separate Schools/Faculties.