Cardiff School of Management has been instrumental in the creation of what has now become a school-based, pan-university unit entitled the Centre for Work-Based Learning. The Centre is committed to university level workforce development.
Cardiff School of Management and the wider university have led the way in this area in Wales since 2011, developing institutional and school expertise after winning a major multi-million-pound Welsh Government work-based learning funded project called Elevate Cymru, and leading the Higher Education Funding for Wales funded Recognition of Prior Learning project. Both of these initiatives afforded Welsh learners, working in SMEs, the opportunity to access higher education through recognition of tacit knowledge and employer-oriented, bespoke, practice-based delivery and assessment.
As detailed in the school’s submission for the Small Business Charter, Cardiff School of Management offers a range of work-based courses and programmes, including short courses, foundation and Masters degrees in professional practice, higher apprenticeships (the first university in Wales to do so), work based ‘shell’ modules within the Cardiff Met Executive MBA, and extensive opportunities across the portfolio to negotiate work focused assessment titles. Work-based learning is thus embedded in the school, and recognised as a critically important pedagogical approach, making higher education accessible to the widest range of learners.
Additionally, employers have the option of working with the school on the accreditation of their existing courses, including collaborating in the development, accreditation, and quality assurance of new, bespoke education. The school’s work-based courses and degrees can be delivered in-house to enhance staff retention and performance, to develop management and leadership skills, and to develop the organisation directly by allowing participants to carry out development projects within, and for, their working environment. Employer short courses, accredited by the university, provide participants with university credit and, often a first experience of higher education, thus facilitating progression to further programmes of study such as the Foundation Degree in Applied Professional Practice. This progression route has recently been enhanced by two new Masters programmes offering negotiated titles at module and programme level, designed using leading edge thinking in work based learning. These programmes include work-based modules based on reflection, research and a negotiated project.
The success of learner recruitment to these courses and programmes is the result of the strong links Cardiff School of Management have built with industry, and with significant employer bodies such as FSB, CBI and the National Training Federation for Wales, a 100+ membership organisation involved in the delivery of learning in the workplace.
The school’s expertise in this area has resulted in requests for academics to speak at events such as the RPL Wales Project Launch; the Policy Forum for Wales, on topics including priorities for apprenticeships in Wales, vocational progression routes, and the role of higher and degree apprenticeships.