Joining the dots between academia, corporates, and social enterprise
Joining the dots between academia, corporates, and social enterprise
Jon Jackson, Senior Lecturer in Digital Apprenticeships at Bucks New University, reflects on his journey into teaching apprenticeships and how they benefit not only the apprentice and employer but also the educator.
Let me begin by stating that I am not a typical academic. I went to university to study Computer Science but then ventured straight into the world of small business and freelancing. Years later, I ended up teaching at Bucks New University on their undergraduate programmes.
I enjoyed sharing my experience and helping students to apply what they were learning in the real world.
Then degree apprenticeships happened.
A progressive approach to degree education
In 2018, I had the opportunity to begin specialising in degree apprenticeships at Bucks. I soon understood the potential benefits of a well designed degree apprenticeship programme.
This is degrees done right, I thought. Of course, the traditional undergraduate route still has its place, but the apprenticeship route turns the higher education model on its head and makes it accessible to a different audience.
Partnering with forward thinking employers
Sky has been a significant employer partner on our Software Engineering degree apprenticeship programme and the relationship is strengthened by many organisation values held in common.
Sky run a Women in Tech scheme, a grass roots initiative that launched to help encourage more women to pursue careers in technology.
The sentiment of one young lady is shared by many who have benefited from the scheme: “I always knew I didn’t want to go to university... When I came across this Sky apprenticeship, I knew it was the perfect approach to take for me - especially in IT as everything is always changing.”
Many of these ladies move onto one of Bucks' degree apprenticeship programmes.
Taking the learning experience further
Our undergraduate Computing degrees contain a lot of project work and live briefs. Bucks have always been strong on applied and experiential learning. I believe this has helped make rolling out a successful degree apprenticeship programme easier for Bucks than some other institutions.
Through my industry connections, I brought in a live brief for our Level 6 software engineering apprentice cohort. The client was a social enterprise called Signly and the founder was keen to present his vision to the apprentices.
It is worthwhile noting that the live brief component is built into our programme. One or our level 6 modules on the apprenticeship is explicitly geared around the students solving a problem that is presented to them. The project or problem changes year on year. This may sound risky or too much like hard work, but the benefits outweigh the effort.
The project afforded the apprentices a valuable opportunity to take a rough outline of an idea and develop a working prototype from scratch as self-organising teams. We dug into Lean Startup theory to help them tackle the project with the mindset of a startup founder.
Signly's mission is to help organisations provide better services to deaf users and the apprentices expressed how positive an experience it was to apply their learning for social good.
As an employer, Sky have been very supportive of initiatives like this and it shows that a successful apprenticeship programme is reliant on positive engagement from all parties involved; academics, learners, and employers.
It is a pleasure and privilege to be involved in joining the dots between academia, corporates and social enterprise.
All things considered, working in degree apprenticeships feels like an ideal place for this atypical academic to teach, encourage, and maybe even inspire.
To find out more about our apprenticeships and how we can help your business visit our dedicated pages.