BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online

The hidden benefits of part-time higher education study to working practices: is there a case for making them more visible?

Callender, Claire and Little, B. (2015) The hidden benefits of part-time higher education study to working practices: is there a case for making them more visible? Journal of Education and Work 28 (3), pp. 250-272. ISSN 1363-9080.

[img] Text
10922.pdf - Published Version of Record
Restricted to Repository staff only

Download (214kB) | Request a copy

Abstract

Within the UK, part-time study is now seen as important in meeting wider government objectives for higher education (HE) and for sustainable economic growth through skills development. Yet, measures to capture the impact of HE may not be wholly appropriate to part-time study. In particular, the continuing focus on tangible, economic measures may be down-playing, or even completely overlooking, other gains. Data from a longitudinal study of part-time students show that irrespective of whether graduates had changed job or employer, or had stayed in the same job, individuals reported substantial work-related gains from their HE studies. We suggest that current research questions that focus on job moves and progression within the labour market, may well be the wrong questions to ask to gauge measures of benefits/returns to HE. Further research is needed to develop measures to fully capture the social returns of skills acquisition through part-time study.

Metadata

Item Type: Article
Keyword(s) / Subject(s): part-time higher education, returns to higher education, skills acquisition, identity and social capital
School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
Research Centres and Institutes: Gender and Sexuality, Birkbeck (BiGS), Social Research, Birkbeck Institute for (BISR)
Depositing User: Administrator
Date Deposited: 06 Nov 2014 11:20
Last Modified: 06 Aug 2025 23:55
URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/10922

Statistics

6 month trend
0Downloads
6 month trend
449Hits

Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

Archive Staff Only (login required)

Edit/View Item
Edit/View Item