Employer Engagement in the Arts Sector
The Higher Education Academy is developing an Observatory service for the higher education sector. It is being piloted with just a few key themes, one of which is Employer Engagement (EE), and a demonstration will be available for consultation with participants at the Academy Annual conference in July 2008.
PALATINE has been funded to contribute a synthesis of material on ways in which employers in the arts sector might work with HE providers:
- as stakeholders: their involvement in the design, development,management, delivery and/or assessment of learning;
- as strategic partners: there is sustained interaction between employers and the planners and providers of learning.
This synthesis will be developed from PALATINE's awareness of and extensive recent project work in the area of the relationships between teaching in higher education and employment and enterprise in the arts sector. It aims to enhance the understanding of policy developers and practitioners within higher education institutions, to further develop policy and practice on employer engagement.
The synthesis will consider approaches to work based learning and employer/industry engagement in a sector where the demand side is always problematic because, compared to other industrial sectors, there is a relative lack of the large arts companies which would be needed to create a market for new initiatives and to introduce work-related learning opportunities. The sector tends to be 'short-term' and reactive, opportunistic in recruitment and skills training because structurally the sector is based on a predominance of SMEs and freelance working.
| Date: | 19/5/2008 - 13/6/2008 |
| Contact: | Ralph Brown 01524 593545, ralph.brown@lancaster.ac.uk |
