HE Course Guide 2024 final web - Flipbook - Page 14
Collaborative partnerships
The University of Cumbria is fully committed to delivering exceptional and
professional higher-level learning to meet the demands of an ever evolving
workforce and emerging markets. They do this by expanding opportunities,
deepening connections to industries, while equipping all students with the ability
to thrive wherever in the world they choose to live. With a proud history offering
arts, business, law, policing, science, conservation, sport, health, social care, rehab
and teacher training programmes to people nationwide, the institution ranked 1st
in the UK for the quality of its education according to the Times Higher Education
Impact Rankings 2020. It enriches people by providing a safe and supportive
environment, as well as innovative academic opportunities, such as providing
degree apprenticeships, CPD and foundation courses through further education
partners, making the impossible possible for more students.
teacher education the rationale for close partnership
underpins curriculum design and development,
research, and human resource planning. The
college’s partners are the key sites of practice and
offer a huge store of knowledge and expertise. The
The Education and Training Consortium (ETC) was
formally constituted in 2001 as the (then) Consortium
for Post-Compulsory Education and Training
(CPCET), a pioneering collaborative partnership
between FE and the University of Huddersfield
focusing on teacher education awards for the
‘Lifelong Learning Sector’. The scale and complexity
of the collaboration is unusual (some 21 partners
mainly, but not exclusively, situated in the North
of England). Geographically, ETC members are
dispersed across the north of England from Hull
to Liverpool, but there are member institutions as
far afield as Northumberland, Norfolk and Essex.
They include large urban general FE colleges as
well as smaller FE institutions. The open nature
of the relationships between partners is a key
characteristic. In the field of Lifelong Learning
12 | Bury College University Centre
University of Huddersfield retains responsibility for
academic standards and quality assurance; however,
the Consortium arrangement was designed to
maximise partner college involvement in managing
the development and delivery of provision. The
distribution of new knowledge and innovation in
teaching and learning constitutes a considerable
challenge within the context of large distributed
learning networks, but the ETC demonstrates
that effective collaboration between HE
and FE can be of great benefit financially,
strategically, academically, and culturally
to both sides of the arrangement. Key
beneficiaries are the students who, in this
case, are both in-service and pre-service
trainee teachers – beyond whom are the
thousands of FE learners they teach.