scholarly journals Stakeholder attitudes towards employability in a Sino-British university

Author(s):  
Sarah Speight ◽  
Natasa Lackovic ◽  
Lucy Cooker

In 2004 the University of Nottingham opened its branch campus, the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC). Degree-awarding powers for UNNC remain with the UK, but there is recognition that Nottingham must understand the specific context of its Chinese branch; provision therefore operates according to the principal of equivalence rather than of replication. This paper explores stakeholder attitudes towards the university's Nottingham Advantage Award. This is an extra-curricular programme designed to support students in the development of their 'employability'. Launched in the UK in 2008, it was piloted at UNNC in 2010-11 and is now nearing the end of its first full year of operation. Twenty-three interviews were conducted with staff and students at UNNC. These were analysed alongside interviews carried out in the UK and with reference to the research literature. This provided an understanding of the role of the Award overall and in the UNNC context. The study shows that while stakeholders hold broadly similar views in the UK and China, there are subtle differences of emphasis concerning the understanding of, and responsibility for, learning for employability. In addition, a group of China-specific themes emerged from the UNNC interviews that indicated recognition of the need to differentiate priorities and provision for each site. The paper concludes that the challenge for the Award at UNNC is to serve both global and local agendas and that it should strive to reduce the 'information asymmetry' existing between stakeholders to promote effective graduate employability.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-81
Author(s):  
Julia McClure ◽  
Amitava Chowdhury ◽  
Sarah Easterby-Smith ◽  
Norberto Ferreras ◽  
Omar Gueye ◽  
...  

The following is an edited transcript of a roundtable that took place at the University of Glasgow in September 2018. The roundtable was organized by Dr. Julia McClure in conjunction with the Poverty Research Network’s conference - Beyond Development: The Local Visions of Global Poverty. That conference brought into focus the ways in which the global and local levels meet at the site of poverty and highlighted the different conceptions on the global are generated from the perspective of poverty. The roundtable brought together leading scholars from Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America to take stock of global history as a field, to consider the role of existing centres of knowledge production, and to assess new directions for the field.


Author(s):  
Lisa Grassow ◽  
Clint Le Bruyns

This article focuses on the #FeesMustFall (FMF) movement and the question of a human rights culture. It provides evidence from the specific context of FMF at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, which exposes human rights abuses and violence to the dignity of protesting students. To advance a human rights culture within the higher education sector in the context of FMF, the article highlights the role of theology – ‘indecent theology’ (as espoused by Marcella Althaus-Reid) – in revealing the problem and promise of higher education institutions in the quest for a more liberating and responsible society. It is only through interrogating the narratives that sustain the current university structures – and continue to oppress the poor and the marginalised – that South Africa will be able to begin to construct a society that is respective of the rights of all.


Popular Music ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-274
Author(s):  
Peter Symon

For some reason, the working lives of music makers are not often given the attention in popular music studies which might be expected. The launch of the UK Year of the Artist – celebrating the role of artists in society – immediately before the 2000 conference of the UK branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), meant that it was especially timely, then, for the IASPM event to address this state of affairs. The conference, The Popular Musician: Performance, Poetics, Power, was held at the University of Surrey, 7–9 July 2000, and took as its central theme the position of musicians – in the music industry, in relation to fans and audiences and in the media, politics and society.


Author(s):  
Marina G. Volnistaya

The article analyses the problem of institutional changes at the university as an academic system in a pandemic. The academic values of the modern university professional community include the social responsibility of the university. In the new conditions, this value dimension of the role of the university in the life of society determines the main directions of research on transformations of the university as the most important social institution. The factors of institutional sustainability of university education are determined. The author examines the role of the university in overcoming global and local risks.


Author(s):  
Nicola Jane Grayson ◽  
Jennie Blake ◽  
Megan Stock

This case study outlines the role of students as partners in the co-creation of workshops for the University of Manchester Library’s award-winning ‘My Learning Essentials’ (MLE) skills programme. It focuses on a new workshop – developed, piloted and delivered in 2017 and called ’Academic Writing for Exams’ – and situates it within the context of the wider MLE programme. The process of developing new workshops is outlined, to illustrate how student members of staff (the Library Student Team) contribute to the creation of new learning resources. The study reveals the extent of the Library’s partnership with students, in relation to researching the topic area, producing high-quality slides and materials and participating in the quality-assurance processes for all new and refreshed resources. The aim is to share best practice and explore how a student/staff working partnership can be mutually beneficial and lead to the design of excellent, inclusive and relevant academic skills support. The study includes valuation data from the live workshop and reflects on the partnership and the process, with a view to developing current practice for the future.


Author(s):  
Jamie Woodcock

Universities have been the site of a variety of shifts and transformations in the previous few decades. Both the composition of students and academics are changing (to a lesser or greater extent), along with the ways in which teaching and research is supported, conducted, and delivered. The effects of neoliberalism, privatisation, precarious employment, debt, and digitalisation have been highlighted as important factors in understanding these changes. However, the ways in which these tendencies are expressed in universities – both in specific and general ways – remain fragmented and under-analysed. In particular, the role of academic labour processes, increasingly mediated through digital technology, remains in the background. There is a risk of viewing these transformations as abstracted, far removed from the day-to-day activities of academic labour on which universities rely. This article will therefore focus on connecting the broader changes in funding, organisation, and digital technology to the labour processes of academics. Rather than seeking a return to a romanticised pre-neoliberal university, this article explores the possibilities of resistance and alternatives to the university as it is now.


Author(s):  
Joan Ramon Rodriguez-Amat ◽  
Bob Jeffery

Exploring the idea of student protests as an autonomous object of research and discussion, this paper leads to the understanding that the transforming role of the university and its governance defines the possibilities for the political role of students. In this perspective, there is a particular constellation of the different forms of higher education governance that provides students with the right and even the responsibility of protesting as politically engaged citizens of the university and of the state. Approaching the transformation of the models of university governance as a set of archaeologically organised states this paper identifies the sequential roles provided to the students and the meaning of their protests and demonstrations. After visiting some antecedents of more contemporaneous student movements and protests, this paper focuses on the UK to explore three manifestations of university governance that can be roughly differentiated as the enduring democratic period that extends from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, the globalisation period that extends from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s and as the post-millennial turn. These periods, embodying three different styles of governance of higher education, not only demonstrate conformity with the political and economic contexts in which they are embeded, they also correspond to particular socio-technological and communicative ecosystems and determine the specificities of the role of the students and their capacity for political action.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 60
Author(s):  
Kaltham Al-Ghanim ◽  
Janet C E Watson

This paper examines the relationship between language and nature in southern and eastern Arabia. The work is the result of a two-year interdisciplinary network between the University of Leeds and Qatar University, with partners in the UK, Oman, Canada, the United States, and Russia. Our hypothesis is that local languages and ecosystems enjoy a symbiotic relationship, and that the demise of local ecosystems will adversely affect local languages. In this paper, we examine some of the language–nature effects in Qatar and Dhofar, southern Oman. Our regions differ in that Qatar has two seasons, summer and winter, and is predominantly arid, with occasional rain, while Dhofar together with al-Mahrah in eastern Yemen has four distinct seasons, receiving the monsoon rains between June and September, and, as a result, is home to hundreds of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. Since the 1970s, in particular, both regions have experienced some of the most rapid socio-economic changes in the world. We ask what affect this socio-economic change has had on the language–nature relationship, and suggest that decoupling of the human–nature relationship as a result of socio-economic change is contributing in these regions to language attrition. We consider spatial terminology, traditional terminology for weather, the traditional measurement of time by narratives around key climatic events, and the role of stars in determining the weather and their role in folklore.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandy Samantha Crawford-Lee

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a short overview of current government policy and context to the development of higher and degree apprenticeships and the engagement of higher education (HE) providers in delivery to achieve the ambition of three million apprenticeship starts by 2020. Design/methodology/approach Opinion piece contextualising the UK Government’s approach to apprenticeship reforms and the role of HE and further education in the design and development and delivery of higher and degree apprenticeships. Findings The apprenticeship system is at a critical stage of development and HE providers need to embrace the opportunities and address the competitive challenges of apprenticeship delivery given the £2.5 billion per annum that will be raised by the apprenticeship levy and the threat to their existing and traditional HE provision. Originality/value Reflects the ambition and mission of the University Vocational Awards Council.


Author(s):  
Camila Devis-Rozental ◽  
Susanne Clarke

The views of higher education staff regarding their role on the induction period has not been fully explored. Yet this transition to university is a complex for students. In the UK, many students who are going to university leave home, some for the first time, having to learn to deal with many new and sometimes difficult situations they may not have come across before. During the induction period students come across many staff within the university and these interactions are vital to support students in developing a sense of belonging within the university community. This small-scale project sought to evaluate the current provision for the induction process in a UK university to identify areas for improvement, by seeking the views regarding the induction activities from staff within a UK university. Findings from a staff survey with 58 participants suggest opportunities to improve practice. The main areas identified were a need for better communication between teams and effective training and support for staff to understand the issues students may face and type of support they will need. Additionally, the need to develop a more unifying understanding of every member of the university as an active participant within the induction process was highlighted.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document