Briefing Paper Cross Institutional Provision: Policy Context

Focusing on the strategic management and operational issues for cross-institutional provision across a wide range of educational contexts, the programme has been able to explore the use of technology in multi-institutional partnerships to address national policies for widening participation, inclusion and work-based learning, and to assess their potential impact on the medium-term strategic planning of technological and pedagogical development.

The 2005 DfES e-strategy Harnessing Technology: Transforming learning and children's services emphasises a collaborative approach to the provision of personalised learning, and plans for an integrated teaching, research and administrative network for education. The strategy proposes common systems and open standards for electronic learning, administration and business. Cross-institutional partnerships are seen as a way of enabling all schools, colleges and universities to progress, and the development of functional collaborative partnerships is an explicit strategic priority.

The 2005 HEFCE strategy for e-learning proposes a partnership approach to institutional e-learning development, encouraging approaches to collaboration, progression and student support to help embed e-learning in broader policies and activities, joined up across sectors within and outside education.

Foundation degrees, launched by the DfES in 2001 as the first significant new HE qualification in 25 years, aim to change the design and delivery of degree-level education, bringing institutions and employers together to create a blend of academic and work-based learning.

The 2003 White Paper Your Region, Your Choice: Revitalising the English Regions set out the Government's plans to decentralise powers and strengthen regional policy. Building on the success of devolution elsewhere in the UK, the Government's aim was to empower the English regions and create the conditions for better government, improved service delivery, and greater prosperity for all. In association with various agencies and bodies, HEFCE has produced a series of regional development priorities for HE in each of the English regions, based on partnership working between the education sectors, public sector bodies and private enterprise.

The 2005 DfES Realising the Potential: a review of the future role of further education colleges in England highlights a potential tension in the policy drivers for partnership working and HE in FE provision, balanced by a clear strategic imperative for the FE sector to develop its primary purpose of improving employability and supplying economically valuable skills.