The Scholarship of Engagement for Politics: - Higher Education ...

The Scholarship of Engagement for Politics
Context
This was the first time we had participated in an undergraduate placement
scheme. We had arranged work experience young people from schools and
participated in the local Youth Council and democracy week (an event
designed to get young people and elected members to talk to each other
either face to face or virtually via the Internet) but we hadn’t before had
students shadowing councillors for any length of time.
For a bit of context: Coventry City Council is a metropolitan council
with approximately 16,000 employees. They provide services ranging from
education and social care to refuse collection and environmental health
and planning. They have eighteen wards across the city, with fifty-four
elected members (three per ward). They have a lord mayor and operate a
leader, cabinet/scrutiny model of governance. Plenty for our students to
look at – but where to start?
Coventry City Council’s approach
Given that there was so much to look at and to take in over a week, we
decided that the best approach would be to assign the students to a team
based upon the research project we had asked them to do. However, after
some further thought, we realised that we risked giving our students a very
one-sided look at local government. We want to get over the complex
nature of Coventry City Council and that one of the many interesting things
about local government is the number of stakeholders involved in any
project, often with different or conflicting priorities.
So we decided that for a fully rounded picture of Coventry City
Council, the students would need to meet a variety of officers and
politicians so that they could get a flavour of the complex nature of politics
in action.
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