ABSTRACT

Context Looking at the discourse of educational policy over the last 10 years, what is striking is the incrementally increasing emphasis on partnership and collaboration as a means of widening and increasing participation in further and higher education. Despite increasing competition between institutions (as described elsewhere in this book), whether we talk about intra-sector relationships between schools, further and higher education, or cross-sector associations between employers and educators, the message from successive governments is the same-recruit more students but also look for more direct contact, dialogue and a better ‘fit’. This is further supported and evidenced in the work and recommendations of national enquiries and commissions such as Kennedy (1997), Fryer (1997) and Dearing (NCIHE, 1997), which in seeking more inclusive and integrationist approaches to widening participation in education as a whole, argue that in liberal democratic capitalist societies economic prosperity and social cohesion are inextricably linked.