Navigating tensions in higher education tripartite practice: experiences of the intrinsic–instrumental nature of apprenticeship

English higher education (HE) policy frames higher and degree apprenticeships (HDAs) as a dual vocational education and training (VET) model, embedding learning in both academic and workplace settings. Central to this is the apprentice–employer–provider “tripartite relationship,” with clearly delineated roles (Roberts et al., 2019). Over the past decade, evolving regulatory frameworks – from Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) ^[1] rules to Ofsted ^[2] inspections – have significantly shaped provider activity (Hodgson et al., 2017; Power-Mason et al., 2025), giving rise to new university roles and practices, still unacknowledged in HE discourses.

The tripartite model underpins apprenticeship learning, facilitating personalised support and shared accountability. Effective collaboration across this relationship is essential for meaningful work-based learning and positive outcomes (Rowe et al., 2018). It also acts as a boundary-crossing mechanism, integrating academic and vocational learning, balancing study–work demands and enhancing learner experience (Andersson, 2018; Hughes and Saieva, 2019; Sauli, 2021). Strong tripartite collaboration supports evaluation, workforce development and adaptability (Brockmann and Smith, 2023; Smith et al., 2022).

However, the model is inherently complex, challenged by misaligned expectations, compliance demands, inconsistent support, unclear responsibilities and communication breakdowns (Bathmaker, 2013; Evans and Cloutier, 2023; Hansberry and Gerhardt, 2023). Such challenges are not unique to the UK; similar issues around employer involvement, role clarity and collaboration exist in dual VET systems in Switzerland, Germany and Denmark (Bonoli and Wilson, 2019). A key challenge for HE providers has been adapting to this collaborative model, including formalising tripartite roles through new job descriptions. This paper builds on the concept of higher education tripartite practitioners (HETPs) – university staff who act as the main point of contact and support for both apprentices and employers (Charlton and Power-Mason, 2025). HETPs are tasked with supporting transformative learning while ensuring compliance with funding and quality regulations (Power-Mason et al., 2025).

Although workplace mentors are well-researched (Fabian et al., 2022; Minton and Lowe, 2019; Roberts et al., 2019), the provider’s tripartite representative receives far less attention. As a result, HETPs often operate without formal recognition or targeted professional development (Esmond, 2020, 2021) – despite substantial investment via the apprenticeship levy.

Tripartite relationships are characterised by the tensions involved in continuous shifts between work and study, often with conflicting priorities (Poole et al., 2023). In broader work-based learning literature, HE staff are recognised for boundary-spanning roles – translating academic standards into workplace contexts, managing conflicts and enhancing learning at the interface (Algers et al., 2016). Boundary spanning is understood as identity work associated with occupation of roles that cross professional and organisational domains (Martin and Ibbotson, 2021; Schein, 1971). International apprenticeship research also notes the facilitative function of provider staff (e.g. Andersson, 2018; Lester, 2020; Taylor-Smith et al., 2023). Yet little is known about how HETPs experience these tensions or the strategies they use to manage them. This study addresses that gap by exploring the lived experience of HETPs, identifying key tensions in their practice and offering theoretical and practical insights to inform the support and development of this essential intermediary role.

HETPs occupy a pivotal yet under-recognized position at the nexus of academic learning and workplace practice in HDAs. Akin to “brokering” roles across academic and professional communities of practice (McMillan et al., 2016), HETPs manage complex responsibilities, balancing apprentices’ educational and developmental needs, employer productivity requirements and compliance demands imposed by regulatory frameworks (ESFA, 2025; Lambert, 2016; Ofsted, 2024; Smith et al., 2021a, b). Functioning as enablers of apprentice learning and enforcers of apprenticeship, this dual accountability inevitably generates tensions, as practitioners oscillate between development and compliance (Mulkeen et al., 2019; Charlton and Power-Mason, 2025). Such roles frequently operate within siloed teams, with limited professional development opportunities (Dalrymple et al., 2014; Esmond, 2020).

Germany and Switzerland feature formalised, institutionally embedded roles that are central to apprenticeship success and occupational innovation (Deissinger and Gonon, 2016; Bonoli and Wilson, 2019). In contrast, the United States adopts more fragmented, uneven approaches due to limited governmental coordination (Lerman, 2012). Coaching and mentoring practices also vary. Australia prioritises employer-led pastoral support to improve outcomes (Smith, 2007), while Germany’s dual VET system effectively integrates advanced knowledge with practical skills – unlike the UK, where weaker academic–industry links persist (Esmond, 2021). The UK also struggles with mismatches between apprentices’ aspirations and workplace realities, highlighting the need for stronger mentor training and employer engagement (Rowe et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2021a, b).

Limited exploration of the English context positions these practitioners as “subaltern educators”, perhaps limiting their professional visibility and growth (Esmond, 2020, 2021). Universal definitions and identity are further complicated by institutional differences, cohort demographics and discipline variance (Martin and Ibbotson, 2021; Smith et al., 2021a, b), alongside variances in scope of responsibility and workload (Charlton and Power-Mason, 2025). Addressing this requires targeted strategic interventions to clearly define and elevate the professional recognition of HETPs, aligning their career pathways with their contributions in managing complex apprenticeship environments (Bordogna, 2019; Lauvås and Vie, 2021).

HETPs occupy boundary-spanning roles between university and employer settings, operating at the intersection of education, industry and regulation. This involves translating policy into practice, and mediating between curriculum and industry needs (Bordogna, 2019; Powell and Walsh, 2018). Responsibilities encompass theoretical and practical domains, supporting apprentices’ career progression and facilitating employer engagement through appropriate work-based learning (Mulkeen et al., 2019; Smith et al., 2022).

As boundary-spanners, HETPs foster collaborative innovation and knowledge transfer between higher education and industry, aiming to enhance apprentices’ employability and sector-specific skills (Lauvås and Vie, 2021; Rebelo et al., 2023). Role conflict is common due to institutional pressures and market demands, requiring navigation of internal complexities alongside external partnerships (Martin and Ibbotson, 2021).

Effective apprenticeship experiences require support beyond technical training, highlighting coaching and mentoring practices. HETPs blend these approaches (Charlton and Power-Mason, 2026). Coaching facilitates apprentices’ reflective practice and problem-solving abilities non-directively, whereas mentoring provides directive guidance and explicit expertise (Garvey, 2018). This dual approach enables flexible, context-sensitive support, addressing pastoral, academic and professional needs.

HETPs offer complementary capabilities distinct from workplace mentors who typically focus on practical skills. HETPs have deeper insights into apprenticeship modalities, academic standards and relevant professional expertise (Charlton and Power-Mason, 2026). Consequently, they proactively address gaps, preventing apprentices from becoming disconnected (Rowe et al., 2017). Regular engagement through integrated mentoring and coaching ensures balanced academic and workplace support.

Nevertheless, tensions exist between developmental roles and compliance-driven obligations, especially around institutional progress review meetings ^[3] (PRMs). Fabian et al. (2022) highlight varying apprentice attitudes towards work and study, influencing their success when support is lacking. Quew-Jones and Rowe (2022) propose coaching-infused conversations that merge compliance with developmental dialogue. This structured yet reflective approach enhances motivation, aligns expectations and promotes active engagement (Roberts et al., 2019; Poole et al., 2023).

Institutional emphasis on coaching and mentoring varies widely. Institutions with expansive apprenticeship cultures empower HETPs in developmental roles, including curriculum co-design. Restrictive contexts emphasize compliance and administration, presenting different pressures, such as heightened workloads or engagement challenges (Martin and Ibbotson, 2021; Fuller and Unwin, 2003).

Ultimately, HETPs enhance apprentice outcomes and bridge systemic gaps between education and workplace contexts. Strengthening coaching and mentoring practices involves investing strategically in mentor development, clarifying roles and acknowledging the complexities practitioners navigate. Addressing these elements is essential for optimizing apprenticeship effectiveness and sustainability, underscoring the critical supportive roles of HETPs.

Data collection commenced with an initial high-level survey (n = 73, HEIs = 25). This collated descriptions of participants’ roles and challenges, establishing preliminary contextual insights and guiding the subsequent stages of investigation.

The second stage comprised semi-structured online focus groups (n = 32, HEIs = 9). Each focus group lasted approximately 45 min, exploring key apprenticeship stages: initial onboarding and skills assessment, periodic PRMs, ongoing engagement and support practices and preparations for End-Point Assessments. Discussions were supplemented by participant reflections from plenary sessions on each of the four topic areas.

The third and final stage involved a long-form survey (n = 12, HEIs = 6) purposefully drawn from eight different apprenticeship standard routes (subject areas). This validated and enriched the earlier findings, exploring commonalities and differences across disciplinary contexts, thereby enhancing the study’s overall breadth and robustness.

Ethical clearance was provided by both institutions for each stage of the data collection. Subsequent template analysis (King, 2004) was employed with rounds of iterative refinement and team discussions leading to a final hierarchical structure capturing eight central tensions experienced by HETPs.

Our analysis identified eight interrelated tensions in HETPs’ accounts, grouped into four overarching themes, reflecting ongoing negotiation between competing demands. Units of Measure considers whether apprenticeship success are framed holistically or in fragmented terms, and whether support is directed collectively or individually. Positionality addresses HETP identity, particularly in navigating roles as mentor or coach, and development/compliance balance. Priorities contrasts process-focused and outcome-driven approaches, and compares disciplinary expertise with apprenticeship modality knowledge. Time horizons captures conflicts between short-term tasks and long-term goals, and duality of reflection and forward planning. The following sections explore these tensions through participant quotes and analysis, illustrating the complexity of tripartite practice.

HETPs articulate tension between a holistic view of apprentice development and a fragmented approach focused on isolated, often hard-to-align tasks.

The many discrete facets of the apprenticeship journey can lead HETPs to experience competing priorities rather than a unified purpose. Broader development risks becoming fragmented under the weight of multiple regulatory demands. The challenge for HETPs lies in meeting short-term requirements without losing sight of the long-term goal: developing competent, reflective practitioners.

This duality between holistic and fragmented perspectives positions HETPs as translators between two value systems They support apprentices through a complex developmental journey-fostering identity, reflection and applied learning-while also meeting modularised demands like competency checklists, learning outcomes and audit trails. These requirements, often enforced with little room for synthesis, risk reducing learning to procedural compliance. Consequently, HETPs do more than facilitate; they negotiate competing visions of success: authentic growth versus instrumental performance.

The integrated support approach, incorporating tools like CBT techniques and skills radars, illustrates how HETPs innovatively to bridge this divide. By embedding reflection and context into progress tracking, they actively resist fragmentation. This is deeply relational work, involving co-construction of meaning with both apprentices and employers. The capacity to balance regulatory demands and the individualised learner journey is a defining hallmark of effective HETP practice.

HDAs can be experienced either as a collaborative journey, where apprentices support and learn from one another, or as a more individualistic path. HETPs must balance fostering a sense of community while encouraging apprentice’s personal responsibility for progress. This dynamic affects apprentice experience, development and engagement. Many facilitate group learning and collaborative activity, reflecting the often blurred boundaries between apprenticeship delivery roles.

Yet, the nature of HDAs, rooted in the unique work-based learning context where the apprentice spends the majority of their time, can lead to isolation.

Interestingly, the individual/collective dynamic and isolation of apprentice experience is mirrored in the HETP experience of their own professional practice.

These perspectives highlight the social dimension of apprenticeship support, and the emotional labour involved in sustaining motivation and connection. Collective learning environments – such as workshops, writing sessions or peer feedback days – offer more than just content delivery. They foster belonging, identity affirmation and peer validation. When HETPs create these communal learning opportunities, they mitigate the isolation of work-based learning environments and help apprentices to construct socially reinforced narratives of development.

Yet this community-building is tempered by the reality that end-point assessment remains inherently individual. The apprenticeship model thus demands both group identity and individual responsibility. HETPs navigate this pedagogical paradox: fostering collaboration within a system structured to recognise individual capability. This tension mirrors their own roles – while they may share insights with colleagues, their work is conducted in professional isolation.

The emotional resonance of these experiences points to an important implication: tripartite support must address technical competence and psychosocial support structures. Thus, HETPs occupy a hybrid role including educational design, pastoral care and boundary-spanning academic, personal and workplace spheres. By creating spaces of encounter within systems that often favour isolation or fragmentation, they offer a counter-narrative to individualised success models, affirming that apprenticeship journeys are both deeply personal and inherently social.

Within a tightly regulated system where every hour of training, both on and off the job, must be documented, HETPs face a core tension–supporting personal and professional development while meeting compliance demands. Developmental work emphases growth and mastery, whereas compliance focuses on rules, regulations and records. Balancing these priorities is critical to the successful delivery, and in doing so HETPs develop their own strategies for achieving these dual purposes.

This tension is not simply logistical but philosophical, reflecting differing understandings of success in apprenticeship education. HETPs who favour developmental models described identity transformation, critical reflection and holistic growth–elements not easily captured by compliance documents. Yet they also recognise their accountability to funding requirements, institutional policies and audit standards. Practitioners therefore create dual frameworks: one that supports the apprentice as a person and learner, and another that ensures institutional credibility.

HETPs navigate this through interpersonal and narrative-based approaches. By framing compliance not as a burden but as a part of professional development, HETPs reposition administrative demands as learning opportunities. Such narrative reframing is pedagogically powerful, fostering learner buy-in and motivation. This underscores the creative and rhetorical dimensions of the HETP role, where policy is only implemented but interpreted and humanised.

As the findings suggest, tripartite practice requires HETPs to serve as both enforcers and enablers of the apprenticeship journey, drawing on different roles and strategies. Mentoring offers empathy, emotional support and fosters long-term growth. Coaching, meanwhile, is task-oriented, focussed on helping apprentices meet specific objectives. Practitioners view the ability to balance these approaches as essential to providing both developmental guidance and the structure needed to achieve short-term success.

Yet a persistent tension emerges in HETP experience: while may express being eager to do more, the constraints, particularly in PRMs, limit what can be achieved.

This dual role requires HETPs to modulate their interpersonal approach to context. At times, they act as assessors or compliance enforcers; at others, as nurturing guides, connecting learning to long-term career goals. Switching between these roles – sometimes within a single interaction – demands emotional intelligence, professional judgment and pedagogical flexibility. The “coaching-infused” model becomes not just a strategy, but an expression of the dual imperative to meet targets and foster transformation.

For many HETPs, the limits of the PRM structure highlight a broader systemic constraint: institutional processes that prioritise measurable outcomes over learning processes. Reported frustration highlights the need for apprenticeship systems to better recognise and support the relational, dialogic work that underpins success. Without this, practitioners face role strain, and learners receive a diminished tripartite experience.

Beyond their practices, HETPs’ attitudes and the value they place on apprenticeships significantly shape their relationships with learners. Some prioritize the learning journey, emphasising continuous development, while others foreground outcomes, including End Point Assessment.

This tension reflects a wider philosophical divide between pedagogies that privilege reflective engagement and those which foreground performance metrics. The apprenticeship, as route to professional formation and qualification, sits uncomfortably between these two poles. HETPs must navigate the challenge of promoting deep learning while preparing learners for the summative demands of EPA. Importantly, this is more than a balancing act–it shapes apprenticeship culture, and the motivational frameworks learners adopt.

Process-oriented approaches centre on the transformative potential of the learning journey, fostering meta-cognitive awareness, values clarification and the integration of practice with theory. In contrast, outcome-oriented strategies foreground achievement, often through structured and repetitive reinforcement of requirements. While both are necessary, overemphasis on the latter can reduce learning to a transactional, box-ticking exercise. HETPs mediate between these perspectives, adapting emphasis depending on learner context, employer expectation and institutional priorities.

In contrast to Esmond’s (2020) subaltern conception of tripartite practitioners, participants often positioned their professional practice and subject expertise as central to their apprenticeship work. However, many also saw tripartite practice as extending beyond traditional academic knowledge bases, emphasising the value of knowledge in practice and praxis.

HETPs therefore represent a unique professional hybrid: neither wholly academic nor purely industry-based. The role demands continuous adaptation, combining subject expertise with fluency in funding, compliance, pastoral care and educational design. This reflects a growing consensus that apprenticeship education is a specialist field in its own right, deserving of professional status recognition and structured development.

The reciprocal nature of the educator-learner relationship is particularly evident here. HETPs not only guide apprentices, but learn from them, continually updating their understanding of industry developments through ongoing dialogue with learners and employers. This dynamic reaffirms the apprenticeship as a site of knowledge exchange rather than unidirectional teaching.

Tripartite practice is situated in an ongoing developmental journey – beginning before the apprenticeship starts, shaping initial skills analysis (ISA) ^[8] and extending beyond completion into ongoing professional growth. This holistic journey is experienced through a series of smaller accomplishments. Participants situate their practice within this context; looking ahead to future goals while reflecting on past milestones that inform the present.

This dual orientation – looking backward and forward – is foundational to the pedagogy of apprenticeship education. Growth is rarely linear; reflection helps contextualise achievement, extract learning and reframe challenges. Simultaneously, apprentices must anticipate future demands, set aspirations and work towards longer-term goals. HETPs act as both historian and futurist: curating reflective spaces that account for progress while mapping trajectories toward professional maturity.

The ability to hold these time horizons in tension reflects a sophisticated form of temporal scaffolding. The past offers feedback and understanding; the future provides direction and momentum. Together, they create a dynamic framework that positions the apprentice as an active agent navigating a professional pathway. Within this, HETPs become timeline navigators, helping apprentices trace progress, interpret missteps and set ambitious yet grounded goals.

The findings highlight inherent tensions between macro and micro perspectives: the holistic vision of apprenticeship as a developmental journey versus the detailed requirements, milestones and practical steps it entails. HETPs must balance immediate demands – such as deliverables, monitoring and compliance – with the longer-term goal of supporting apprentices’ growth and career progression. Both are essential, but the ability to prioritise appropriately across contexts is a critical skill for effective practice.

The coexistence of short and long-term priorities creates significant pressure on the HETP’s professional judgment. Time becomes not only a logistical constraint but a pedagogical dimension. Practitioners must constantly decide how to use limited contact time: to address urgent compliance tasks or nurture reflective dialogue with longer-term value.

This tension is particularly apparent in PRMs – structured touchpoints burdened with competing demands. HETPs acknowledge their value but express frustrations when developmental intentions are curtailed by time or structure. Nevertheless, many demonstrate sophisticated strategies for embedding future-focused goal setting within even tightly framed agendas.

In this respect, boundary spanning applies not only to locations of learning, but also durations of learning. The distinct feature of apprenticeship education – its longitudinal and developmental nature – demands that HETPs think in layered temporalities. They must help learners connect past achievements with future ambitions, while attending to immediate requirements. Mastering this temporal navigation lies at the core of the tripartite professional identity.

Ten years into the implementation of HDAs in England, this study offers a timely examination of the HETP role. Drawing on detailed practitioner accounts, it reveals a nuanced set of tensions shaped by both structural constraints and expansive aspirations. The study contributes to extending the “expansive–restrictive” continuum (Fuller and Unwin, 2003), focusing on how practitioners experience and navigate this dynamic. It highlights how HETPs balance policy compliance with learner-centred development, offering conceptual and practical insights into sustaining expansive practices within restrictive infrastructures.

Findings illuminate the dual nature of tripartite practice as both intrinsically meaningful and instrumentally driven. Practitioners described their roles as deeply rewarding, centred on supporting apprentices’ professional growth and identity formation. This intrinsic motivation aligns with expansive environments where learning is developmental, dialogic and relational. Conversely, instrumental demands – compliance, data reporting and end-point assessments – reflect the restrictive pole, where apprenticeship serves institutional metrics and policy agendas. These tensions stem not only from structure but from conflicting values embedded in apprenticeship design. HETPs must constantly negotiate apprenticeship as both a transformative process and an output-driven system.

The HETP role is central to enacting apprenticeship provision, balancing regulatory demands with the developmental potential of work-based learning. The expansive–restrictive continuum is not merely theoretical but experienced directly by practitioners in daily decisions. HETPs report that short-term compliance tasks (e.g. off-the-job training evidence, EPA readiness, audits) often compete with longer-term goals like reflection, autonomy and integrating theory with practice. Yet rather than yielding to these tensions, experienced HETPs adopt creative strategies to manage both ends of this spectrum, positioning practitioner agency at the heart of the expansive–restrictive framework.

This study brings much-needed practitioner voice to a field often dominated by policy discourse. By examining how HETPs navigate tensions across Units of Measure, Positionality, Priorities and Time Horizons, it exposes overlooked dimensions of apprenticeship delivery. Boundary-spanning emerges as a defining feature of the HETP role. Far from being passive facilitators, HETPs act as meaning-makers and value brokers, mediating across pedagogical, procedural and practical domains. Their efforts directly influence learner progression and employer satisfaction.

Framing HETPs as agentic boundary-spanners resonates with international research. In Germany, apprenticeship success can similarly be seen to hinge on dimensions of work-based curriculum integration, pedagogical adaptability and practitioner professionalism (Billett, 2016; Esmond, 2021). Across systems, practitioner agency is key to managing competing priorities – whether through flexible delivery (Smith, 2007) or implicit boundary-crossing strategies in dual systems (Esmond, 2021). Following German and Swiss examples (Deissinger and Gonon, 2016), the institutional and cultural foundations underpinning HETP practice may also be critical to tripartite collaboration in HDAs.

The findings also indicate a shift in apprenticeship support, with growing integration of developmental and compliance functions. Earlier models often separated coaching from monitoring, resulting in fragmented provision. Now, approaches such as “coaching-infused” progress reviews illustrate how integration arises from practitioner creativity, not policy mandate. This is significant: the expansiveness of HDAs is often maintained not through systemic design but through everyday acts of translation, interpretation and advocacy by HETPs.

However, institutional barriers persist. As noted in wider literature, HETPs face unclear career paths, marginalisation and increasing workloads (Welbourn et al., 2019). These challenges inhibit expansive practice. Without targeted institutional support, the burden of tripartite collaboration falls on individuals, risking burnout and inconsistency. Institutions must move beyond the apprenticeship “echo chamber,” apply the lessons of the last decade (Power-Mason et al., 2025) and embed work-based learning expertise into mainstream academic culture. Clearer roles, better resourcing and strategic support for HETPs are vital.

For policymakers, the findings call for reforms that acknowledge the cumulative tensions HETPs face. While compliance and quality assurance are essential, so too is developmental, relational support. Simplifying documentation, encouraging innovation and aligning funding with educational value – not volume – would enable HETPs to work more expansively. Involving HETPs in policy development could also enhance implementation and coherence.

Practical implications are equally important. Professional development should reflect the dual nature of the HETP role, supporting skills in negotiation, coaching, stakeholder engagement and reflective practice. Institutions should foster apprenticeship communities of practice to share strategies and innovate across disciplines. Finally, creating formalised status for HETPs – through recognised competencies, frameworks or progression routes – would ensure the sustainability and professional recognition of this critical workforce.