Embedding employability into the curriculum strategic enhancement programme

The project aligns Edge Hill University strategy with practice by auditing evaluating sharing embedding and disseminating good practice in programmes throughout the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

The focus for the area of development is to devise and modify current academic curricula so that there is an increased awareness and opportunity for undergraduates to develop their employability skills. As opposed to additional careers modules that are logistically very difficult to undertake for certain student groups embedding such skills within the taught sessions alongside course material will allow all to engage. The importance of self- reflection and creation of a modality in order to be able to do this will help students to progress.

An area of focus for this initiative concerns employer engagement in curriculum activities and how this can best be achieved. The initiative will provide an opportunity to review existing employer engagement activities at Regent’s assessing and identifying particularly fruitful activities (e.g. consultancy projects) used on modules that might then be used on other modules or courses.

Oldham College's intended area for development is to first reflect on evaluate and improve the student employability experience and increase the opportunities for career progression at graduation. This process will enable the team to develop both course programme and institution wide engagement of employers and organisations who will be involved in an advisory and consultation role.

Within the University Centre  North Lindsey's future objectives regarding employability focus upon two primary aims; the first of which is to make their Classifieds Scheme more accessible to students through a range of opportunities which account for the diversity of students and their associated commitments outside of their studies. Secondly to develop an Employability Scheme and accompanying working group with the aim of encouraging closer collaboration between programme teams and students within the University Centre.

The Bedfordshire team plan to gain an enhanced understanding of employer needs for their graduates; this will lead to a more effective communication within the triangular model: the aim is a genuine integration of vocational skills knowledge and experience into our curricula so that graduates have real employability potential and the confidence to articulate this including through relevant official documentation such as the Edge and the HEAR.

The Employability Enterprise Careers and Students’ Union teams will work together to: a) Clarify definitions of employability and enterprise in order to create a working benchmark/definition for staff across the University. b) Clarify the role of enterprise and entrepreneurship in the development of student and graduate employability. c) Review establish practice and compile strategy models for implementation of UCLAN student employability and enterprise d) Create a culture for employability and enterprise which aims to place employability and enterprise at the core of the academic curriculum by developing staff awareness knowledge and competency in creating and delivering an innovative curriculum which engages the wider student population.

Dundee's plan is to capture the elements of the work to date transcribing this ultimately into a sustainable transferable model of good practice situated within the respective Employability and Internationalising HE Frameworks (HEA 2013; 2014). They recognise the need for specific professional areas for an enhancement-led model supported by associated resources to develop practice.

UEA plan to develop an authentic employability experience for our students – a cross faculty project contributing towards the University wide UEA Skills Award employability initiative. The project will explore authentic employability in the experience of our students both in the sense that they see their academic work as being directed to the ‘real-world’ but also in that they need to recognise their own authentic and unique attributes in order to be able to showcase them to an employer. The project will provide evidence for students that will enable them to articulate their employability in a confident fashion.

This project plans to pilot a Personal Career Plan for our students to encourage them to ‘Explore Decide Achieve’ in the three areas identified as being critical to the development of students' employability – work experience skills development and career management.

Huddersfield plan to implement learned practices into these two existing modules and perhaps into the undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes more generally. What Knight and Yorke (2003) and Dacre Pool and Sewell (2007) both stress is the incorporation of degree subject knowledge with career development tools. This – the ‘embedded’ approach - is currently lacking in their practice and the team plan to work harder to integrate subject area content and work experience. By participating in a national network  the team hope to learn from other institution’s practices and implement good practice here. Conversely  the team aim to report on their evidence-based learning on how employability can be embedded in the curriculum in order to inform the HEA’s support and resources for the sector.

This project aims to work with academic departments to highlight employability skills inherent within the curriculum and making this transparent to students through the use of Mahara. The project hopes to achieve agreement on a common agenda that combines academic endeavour and employability which will enable student engagement and success.