1. Espoused challenges and real problems Learning Gain: An Agenda for Change, 27th September 2018
Heike Behle & Chris Warhurst

2. Introduction
Ofs wants to better understand ‘learning gain’; measuring ‘the improvement in knowledge, skills, attributes, work-readiness and personal development made by students during their time spent in higher education’.
Will help identify the ‘value of higher education’ and help governments ‘shape their policies and investments accordingly’.
13 pilots, covering 70 universities in the UK plus testing of US methodology in the UK. Important initiative in terms of aims and potential ramifications e.g. TEF.
There are espoused challenges that have triggered the policy; there are real problems within the policy; the two don’t necessarily align.
No apologies for problematising learning gain and its stated aims. Is its problem that it sidesteps the real problems?

3. Espoused challenges
Massive expansion of HE – students numbers and HEIs, from elite to mass higher education system – legitimised by drive for ‘knowledge economy’.
Rising costs for government; withdrawal of public funding, now lowest publicly-funded tertiary education amongst the OECD countries; shifting of cost to learners via loans.
Two ‘value for money’ considerations: for government, for learners.
For government: efficient ‘customer’ delivery; who are the customers?
For learners: ‘customerisation’ of learning experience – from being a gym to a bakery – with instrumental outcomes.
Bridge between the two is HE ensuring that it plugs the skills gaps claimed by employers.

4. The real problems Supply Process Outcomes Demand Policymaker needs
Policy hurdle
Old, strong policy
New, strong policy
Supply
Process
Outcomes
Demand
More of the same: emphasis on individual KSAs but employability also a function of labour market needs and state of the economy
A belief in magic. Legitimate question but premised on a ‘sprinkling of magic dust’ approach. But, see Wolf and Arum & Roksa
Weak measures: having a job, level of salary. Difference between being employed and being employable e.g. ‘work readiness’
Little understanding of what employers want – and if HE can deliver it. Graduate skills vs skills of graduates

5. Concluding comments
The value of higher education to government and learners, measured by acquired KSAs for an instrumental purpose – a higher paying job.
Difference between the espoused challenges triggering policy and the real problems within that policy. Not clear, even within own aims, that learning gain is addressing the right problem/s e.g. ‘employability’.
Benign account: 1) practical problem – data availability, what gets measured gets counted. Reliable(ish) data on employment outcomes.
But also, within its own terms, weak conceptualisation in policy: of what constitutes supply and employer demand; of link between supply and demand, and HE’s function therein.
Learning gain can’t be just about ‘being employed’, need policy within which the first order priority is the broader function of HE.