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This chapter explores the policy changes which occurred in English higher education since 2011 which resulted in new or private higher education (PHE) providers engaging in the sector with the same regulatory requirements as established institutions (the ‘level playing field’). This chapter begins by exploring some challenges in defining and understanding PHE in England and the United Kingdom and presents some international literature to frame the English sector against PHE developments in other countries, suggesting that England’s PHE sector is distinct from international examples as it did not emerge due to an inability on the part of the incumbent sector to provide sufficient diversity of opportunity to study in England, instead emerging through a perceived need for greater competition and efficiency in the sector. The policy development of the level playing field is outlined through a review of key policy statements and reviews. A review of a sample of Access and Participation Plans submitted by PHE providers in England is used to provide some contextual data around some of the challenges presented for small, specialist PHE providers engaging with and enacting national-level widening participation (WP) policy in England. Such challenges typically include small data sets which hamper thorough analysis of interventions, under-developed information technology (IT) and record systems, and a lack of specialist expertise. These findings provide some challenge to the idea that PHE or alternative providers are inherently good at recruiting and teaching WP students as many institutions appear to have limited capacity for the data analysis and evaluation required by the Office for Students (OfS) to support such claims.

Traditionally, apprenticeships have been the domain of further education and skills training providers, predominately at pre-higher education levels where management, organisation, inspection and funding have little in common with those familiar to higher education. Higher level and degree apprenticeships have brought together different cultures and methods of designing, delivering and assessing knowledge, skills and behaviours, funding learners and learning providers, data reporting, quality management and its review or inspection. The purpose of this paper is to establish the primary concerns about managing quality in degree apprenticeships, the challenges the variances bring, how the challenges are being resolved and future work that may be required.

A review of a range of guidance and organisations involved in managing the quality of higher education in apprenticeships was undertaken. The primary focus is on the advice and guidance provided through the Quality Code and associated documentation, which are key to managing and assuring standards and quality in UK higher education. In addition, requirements and guidance provided through other bodies is considered along with the cross-sector groups charged with developing quality assurance processes for apprenticeships at all levels.

The paper shows a range of detailed guidance available to those entering the higher and degree apprenticeships arena and how the organisations involved in quality assurance of apprenticeships are working together to remove or mitigate concerns to ensure that quality is embedded and successfully managed.

Designing and delivering higher level and degree apprenticeships is a relatively new addition to UK higher education providers. There are long established practices to assure the quality and standards of UK higher education wherever and, however, it is delivered, in the UK, overseas and through online models. Apprenticeships across the UK have changed significantly over recent years, and new models, organisations and methods of working and funding have been introduced. This paper brings together key activity by the Quality Assurance Agency and other stakeholders to show how standards and quality can be managed and assured.

The focus of this chapter is on micro-credentials in higher education. In the current complex and fluid context, there is a demand for higher education providers to be able to respond with flexible and targeted provision of learning opportunities. Crafting micro-credentials, or disaggregating credentials, can be effective in reaching target audiences. For students, the availability of micro-credentials allows them to satisfy immediate learning needs. For industry, micro-credentials can provide elements of vocational training. On the other hand, it is a challenge to design micro-credentials that provide the cognitive perspective associated with higher education to ensure an appreciation of an associated body of knowledge or field of study. Further, education offered by universities and other higher education providers needs to have the potential to support the ongoing academic life of the institution, which is dependent on teaching being informed by research and current understandings in the field, and the research area being refreshed with talent with an appreciation of their field of study and associated bodies of knowledge. This, therefore, can be seen as something of an eco-system, which is dependent for its sustenance on learners acquiring more than fragments of knowledge or information. There are consequences for devising policies and procedures for the design, recognition, and provision of micro-credentials in higher education. Policies and procedures need to explicitly relate micro-credentials to the current and emerging understandings in an academic discipline or field of study. Academic standards that apply to offering credentials need to be maintained. Associated staff support and development is a requirement.

Widening participation (WP) has increasingly become part of the normal ‘business’ of English higher education (HE) providers during the last 25 years. WP entered the policy mainstream for the entire HE sector following the Dearing Review (NCIHE, 1997) and the election of a new Labour government wedded to notions of social justice but also concerned with ‘lifelong learning’ in the name of human capital growth. This book employs a dual usage of the term ‘business’ in relation to WP policy, practice and culture in the context of the marketised English HE system. The first, figurative, usage explores the ways in which WP has been drawn into institutional positionality as HE providers are encouraged to differentiate themselves in the market. The second, literal, usage explores the ways in which the business of WP has become ‘business as normal’ for the sector and institutions, increasingly intertwined with other activities and which play out variously, often in response to regulatory demands of the state. This introductory chapter first contextualises these developments with a brief overview of the evolution of the HE sector in England before proposing a multilevel model – the HE policy enactment staircase – as a way of thinking about how policy is made, enacted and implemented within the sector. This chapter then draws upon this model to acts as a structure for this book. It does this by moving from a macro-level exploration of ideological levels of policymaking, through National/Sectoral level right down to the issues at an institutional and operational levels. In doing so, this chapter creates a framework from which to understand how the various elements and levels of the business of WP play out within the English HE sector.

The English sector is characterised by an expanding and increasingly differentiated set of higher education providers (HEPs) and an ever-more diverse student body. As a consequence, HEPs are as differentiated in their widening participation (WP) approaches as they are in every other aspect of the business of HE, and this has led to tensions between why and how they should go about the business of WP. Are HEPs driven by the desire to enhance social justice or merely responding to regulatory pressure? This chapter discusses how changing market regulatory regimes have interreacted with, and often conflicted with, institutional missions as they try to respond to the dual policy imperatives discussed in earlier chapters: the economic, human capital expansionary dynamic and the desire to enhance social justice through access to the HE system.

The recent development of higher education in Africa has been spurred, in part, through a variety of cross-border higher education (CBHE) initiatives. However, this is not a new trend and this chapter traces the development of CBHE activities in Africa from the early 1900s through the current era. While the earliest forms of CBHE were largely fostered through Western nations providing advice and validation to institutions in Africa, the types of CBHE engagements are much more varied, including collaborations among African nations. The chapter also explores the push by some African nations to become educational hubs, the variability of CBHE policies across nations, and the shift of collaboration from the global north to south.

The final chapter of this volume brings together the key debates from this book and situates them within an ever-developing policy landscape. It argues that the themes this volume raises around the two competing uses of ‘business’, both figurative and literal, continue to drive developments in widening participation (WP). It draws together threads around the figurative usage of business to consider the ways in which the ideology of marketisation has impacted the sector to date and continues to shape policies in this area. Considering the more literal ways in which WP has become the ‘business’ of the sector, this chapter draws together threads from across the second part of this book, which examined how higher education providers (HEPs), further education colleges, new providers and third sector WP organisations all enact WP as part of their ‘business as usual’. This chapter concludes with a summary of changes to the market structure introduced since the Higher Education Research Act (HERA, 2017), such as the levelling up White Paper (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, 2022), the Department for Education (DfE, 2022a) higher education policy statement and Office for Students (OfS) regulatory consultations (OfS, 2022b), and questions whether these represent minor tweaks to a recently embedded policy environment or indeed render much of the 2017 settlement redundant. Whether these are considered as continuity or change, in the final analysis, they suggest that there remain tensions among those responsible for the executive/ideological policy direction, with corresponding knock-on effects elsewhere on the enactment staircase. What remains clear, however, is that the contradictions inherent in the dual imperative – the human capital needs of the country juxtaposed against a desire for a more socially just society – remain unresolved while a ‘level playing field’ market order is layered over such a steep institutional hierarchy.

This paper focuses on the importance of impact in higher education from a strategic perspective, exploring its value to institutions, learners and prospective students in today’s higher education context, using the UK as a case study. The increasing prominence of impact assessment in higher education is discussed, with consideration given to the operational structures, tools and approaches which can be adopted to monitor and evaluate the impact of any strategic project or initiative introduced by a higher education provider.

This paper presents a strategic view of impact assessment in today’s higher education landscape.

The significance of impact assessment in higher education is discussed from a strategic perspective, drawing upon relevant studies, UK Government policy and initiatives. Consideration is given to the tools and approaches that can be adopted by higher education providers in assessing the impact of any strategic initiatives and projects that have been implemented.

The paper is of value to 'any higher education provider that is currently undertaking, or planning to deliver large-scale strategic projects and initiatives which have been designed to enhance the student learning experience.

Academic corruption and fraudulent practices have become problematic in recent years. Governments around the world have introduced dedicated higher education commissions to regulate higher education providers. The purpose of this paper is to design a system for the detection and prevention framework of fraudulent behaviour in higher education.

This paper performs a survey on academic misconduct practices and expands the survey by analysing the accreditation process. This study further identifies common corrupt practices in the accreditation process with reference to particular accreditation standards or laws. If the accreditation process is as thorough as, this paper is led to believe, a higher institute may stop being compliant immediately after the accreditation process. playing a catch-me-if-you-can at the next accreditation cycle. The survey of the accreditation process and identification of corrupt practices lead to an identification of preventative and detective measures.

The review of accreditation procedures and conditions identifies that fraudulent practices can occur at every part of any policy and procedure. The framework prevents repudiation and allows for spontaneous investigations internally and externally. The blockchain prevented changes to the system and allow for auditing of changes. A system such as this could suppress accreditation fraud and minimise its corrupt impact. Not to mention identify with relative ease the severity and life of corrupt practice.

Contributions are made in the framework for detecting and preventing corrupt practices in Higher Education using blockchain immutable transactions. This enables real-time accreditation compliance checks and monitoring of conditions. External complaints or reviews can be conducted with minimum interactions from higher education providers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of empathy in the student service experience. Taking a dyadic perspective, both students’ and staff’s perceptions are analyzed to determine if empathy matters to both actors alike; and which differences in perceptions about the role of empathy between these actors exist.

The authors adopt a multi-method approach and used data from 256 usable survey responses from 11 higher education service providers in Singapore. Empathy was operationalized by six cognitive and affective independent variables and multiple multivariate analyses are applied, such as multivariate analysis of variance, discriminant analysis and multiple regression analysis.

Results show that both students and staff alike evaluate empathy as important in the co-created service experience. The provision of individualized attention to students to positively influence student experience in learning was deemed important by both staff and students. Yet, there are also distinct differences. For students, it is essential that staff members have students’ best interests at heart; for staff members, knowledge of students’ needs and show of care and concern are important.

Students and staff perceive empathy in higher education service provision differently. Interestingly, whilst staff think caring for students is important, students feel that too much care and concern from staff has a negative effect on their experience. Hence, too much care and concern might cause potential issues with the students’ perception of “over-servicing” which might manifest as “spoon-feeding.” Instead, students are asking for individualized and professionalized attention to be taken seriously and to be involved in the co-creation of the education service experience.

This study advances the understanding of affective and cognitive aspects of empathy and their influence on students’ service experiences.