The placement: best practice in vocational education, or slavery?’

The placement: best practice in vocational education, or slavery?’ Judith Watson (University of Brighton) and Linda Clarke (University of Westminster)

Contradictions • In this presentation we explore contradictions in the concept of the work placement and suggest some ways forward for policy.

Placements in vocational education • It is well established in the literature on vocational education and training, and on professional education, that a placement is best practice. • Apprenticeship pre-dates full-time vocational education and was the norm in the professions until the 20th century.

In the professions • Doctors, nurses and all other health professionals have integral placements • Solicitors, teachers, engineers, all have to have placements as an integral part of their initial education and training and their continuous professional development • The “sandwich course” model has been well established in engineering

Placements in the news • Yet placements have made the headlines in a completely different way recently, by being identified as exploitative, whether as workfare, or as post-graduation “internships”. Young jobseekers told to work without pay or lose unemployment benefits People taking up work experience places – providing up to 30 hours a week of unpaid labour – face losing benefits if they quit The Guardian, Wednesday 16 November 2011

Placements cost money • Whether placements are “real” work for which the student/trainee/worker should receive at least the national minimum wage, is posed more starkly than ever, and it can no longer be assumed that full-time students have their financial needs met through the grants/loans system.

From apprenticeship.org.uk • Popular Apprentices Q&A's • What is an Apprenticeship? • Do I have to pay anything to become an apprentice? • Do I get paid? • Do I get holidays? • (Paying to become an apprentice, the “apprenticeship premium”, was abolished in the Wages Council Act 1959. Is it coming back?)

International context • In Germany applied theoretical knowledge is key to apprenticeships and vocational learning • Learning moves between classroom, workshop and workplace • Question of whether nurses are apprentices or students is different in France and Germany. • The relationship of placements to institutional learning is theorised in Germany. In Britain there are not support structures for it.

CLAW research network • Connecting Learning and Work (CLAW) • Universities so far: Brighton, Warwick, Westminster, Kings, South Bank • Seeking partnership with world-of-work bodies • Scope: work experience in schools, colleges and universities, for unemployed and labour-market inactive people (“workfare”), apprenticeship. Continuities between these phases, general principles

General principles • Sequence: how are different placements absorbed into a career? • Learner voice • Curriculum • Educating the mentors • Legal frameworks • Learner subsistence and pay • Qualifications and accreditation

Issues identified • Governance/regulation issues including quality assurance, employer/institution links, trade union involvement, placement search, learning reps, learner voice, equity • Education issues including applied theoretical knowledge, curriculum integration, continuity of learning across phases, qualifications, frameworks • Labour market/work issues including pay, boundary with volunteering, working conditions, health and safety, local labour markets, travel to learn

Problems in all the phases • 14-16: no longer compulsory (Wolf Report) • 16-19 leaving learning age kicks in • Tension between apprentice as learner and as worker. (Ryan) • No connection between placements in different phases. The learning logic in doing a placement pre 16 and another 16-18 is not communicated (Muir and Fettes) • Formal work experience placements are never tied into a student’s part-time job (unless the student makes the connections) • Professional education: Teach First and new social work equivalent “Frontline”, Nurse education, all controversial

Taking the learner’s needs into account • The placement’s capacity to enhance learning is very powerful, but only if the learner’s needs are explicitly taken into account, and guaranteed through negotiated structures • These structures will differ according to the phase and type of education/training, but must at least be robust enough to ensure that a valid learning experience is offered and that rights in the workplace are not infringed

Communities of learning • Placement trainees and apprentices are engaged in legitimate peripheral practice • When do communities of practice become communities of learning? • How can we ensure that all placements are organised as learning programmes rather than as cheap/free labour?

The placement: best practice in vocational education, or slavery?’