Edinburgh Napier University

  Apprenticeship degrees bring the radical possibility of higher education without debt. They also require taking learning off-campus and into the workplace, collaborating with employers on credit-bearing workplace learning, inclusion, and widening access. This study surveyed workplace mentors and university staff about the training universities provide to mentors to support degree apprentices, especially focusing on inclusion. Using Activity Theory (AT), current training was mapped as an activity system, including motivations, format (tools), objectives, guidelines, stakeholders (community), and divisions of labour. Activity systems embody multiple perspectives and interests, developing over time, with the potential for contradictions to become sources of transformative change (Engeström, 2001). The main finding is that few mentors feel they are receiving adequate training for the role, with many not receiving any. The AT analysis highlights the challenges of ringfencing time for mentors and allocating responsibility for appropriate training and inclusion strategies among the collaboration partners.