What is meant by excellence in practice with regard to work experience provision?

1. What is meant by excellence in practice with regard to work experience provision? Harriet Richmond Work Placement Tutor Newman University, Birmingham

2. Session outline • How might excellence in work experience provision be defined? • Dominant discourses of ‘employability’ in HE frame responses to work-based learning • Can we take an alternative view? • A case study of the philosophy and dimensions of the CH work placement at Newman

3. One measure of ‘good practice’ ‘The audit team found strong evidence to support work-placement opportunities being provided to all honours degree programmes…The team considered the wide ranging work-placement opportunities provided by the University College to be a feature of good practice. (QAA, 2011, p.12)

4. CH Placement model at Newman

5. An integrated model for work experience

6. Why isn’t the employability agenda working? • The article focuses on employability taught within the HEI, not work experience • But…it reveals little common ground about what employability is, what it is for and who it is for • Important lessons for good practice in integrated work-based learning

7. What does ‘employability’ mean? It is difficult for universities to resist teaching employability when league tables measure how many graduates are in full-time employment six months after receiving their degrees, and with ministers reminding us of graduates’ need to pay off the enormous fees that the government has imposed. Steve Sarson [E]mployment matters to government but…this is not necessarily employability. (Tymon, 2011, p.8)

8. What does ‘employability’ mean?A policy perspective ‘A set of achievements, - skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy’ (Pegg et. al, 2012)

9. What does ‘employability’ mean?The student perspective A recent study suggests that learners focus on employment rather than employability: • ‘[E]mployabilityis a short-term means to an end, being about finding a job, any job, or employment.’ (Tymon, 2011, p.13)

10. What does ‘employability’ mean? Do we all agree? ‘[A]ny agreement [about employability skills] is just between ‘labels’, with little evidence to suggest that any of the interested stakeholders…share a common understanding of these terms’ (Tymon, 2011, p.13)

11. What does employability mean? An alternative view ‘…complex capability set [encompassing]…values, identity, social engagement and intellect.’ (Hinchcliffe and Jolly, 2011, p.581)

12. What is employability for? Universities used to talk about education for education’s sake and opening people’s minds. Now we talk increasingly about education for employment’s sake, with the methods utilised increasingly closing people’s minds. Steve Sarson Objection to the philosophical changes in HE which seem to have coincided with a shift in the motivation to study, away from intellectual discovery towards a more instrumental approach (Jackson, 2009)

13. What is employability for?The student perspective The Futuretrack Survey: • The top two reasons why students apply for a higher education course is related to their ‘longer-term career plans’ and the association of higher-level study with ‘getting a good job’ (Purcell et.al, 2008, p.35)

14. What is employability for?An alternative view ‘Work-related learning has a formative function; to develop degree-level learning through emphasis on reflective learning processes and metacognitive capabilities, such as judgment, reflection and critical awareness.’ (Moreland, 2005, p. 3)

15. Who is employability for? Requiring students to identify and devise “action plans” to address their “weaknesses” also legitimises the notion that they must adapt to the needs of business, as opposed, for example, to business adapting to the needs of individuals, communities and countries. Steve Sarson A response to Government-created expectations that universities should always respond to employers’ demands (Cornford, 2005)

16. Who is employability for?An alternative view ‘[D]evelopmentof graduates who are active and empowered to seek out jobs and organisations that fit their preferences and characteristics’ (Moreland, 2005, p.3)

17. A philosophy for work experience ‘We should cease thinking and writing about “learning transfer” and think instead of learning as becoming, within a transitional process of boundary-crossing’ (Hager and Hodkinson, 2009, p.635)

18. Adopting an integrated model • Progression over time • Focus on learning transition rather than skills acquisition • Experience is explicitly connected to subject • But…. • Some health warnings: there are points of discomfort for students • First year input is problematic for both mature students and a younger age group • Not all experiences are positive • Time and resource intensive activity • Investment in administrative systems • Local context

19. References CBI (2011) Working towards your future: Making the most of your time in higher education, Available at: http://www.cbi.org.uk/media/1121431/cbi_nus_employability_report_march_2011.pdf (accessed 5.5.13) Cornford, I.R. (2005) Challenging current policies and policy makers’ thinking on generic skills. Journal of Vocational Education and Training 57, no. 1: 25–45. Hager, P. & Hodkinson, P. (2009) ‘Moving beyond the metaphor of the transfer of learning’, British Educational Research Journal, 34 (4), pp.619-184 Hinchcliffe, G. W. and Jolly, A. (2011) ‘Graduate identity and employability’, British Educational Research Journal, 37 (4), pp. 563-584 Jackson, D. (2009) Profiling industry-relevant management graduate competencies: The need for a fresh approach. International Journal of Management Education 8, no. 1: 85–98. Moreland, N (2005) Work-related learning in higher education, Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/employability/id370_work-related_learning_in_higher_education_582.pdf (Accessed 26.1.13) Ng, T.W.H., and D. Feldman. (2009) How broadly does education contribute to job performance? Personnel Psychology 62: 89–134. Ann Pegg, Jeff Waldock, Sonia Hendy-Isaac, R.L. (2012) Pedagogy for Employability, available: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/employability/pedagogy_for_employability_update_2012.pdf. The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) (2011), Institutional audit, Newman University College, Available at: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/InstitutionReports/Reports/Pages/inst-audit-Newman-11.aspx (Accessed 01/05/13) Sarson, S. (2013) 'Employability Agenda isn’t working', Times Higher Educational Supplement, 21 March [Online]. Available at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/comment/opinion/employability-agenda-isnt-working/2002639.article (Accessed: 25.03.13). Tymon, A. (2011) “The student perspective on employability,” Studies in Higher Education, (May 2013), 1–16, available: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03075079.2011.604408 [accessed 26 Apr 2013]. Yorke, M. 2006. Employability in higher education: What it is and what it is not. Learning and Employability Series 1. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ourwork/ employability/employability336 (accessed May 17 2013).