Accreditation for students' part-time work
Accreditation for students' part-time work
More than 40 per cent of students now work between 12.5 and 40 hours a week during term time. Most receive no formal recognition for the skills they develop during this time, nor any structured support to help them to maximize the learning potential from this work experience. David Thomas, Careers Research Advisory Centre (CRAC) chief executive, said: "Employers are now not only looking for graduates with strong academic track records and good degrees, they also want a number of key skills." Now CRAC is seeking to match students'casual work experience with employers' skill requirements. Its Insight Plus initiative will offer accreditation for different types of work experience,including involvement in clubs and societies as well as in part-time paid work.
Founder employer partners include Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Mars and Consignia. Andrew Bottomley, Pricewaterhouse Coopers senior manager for university relations, said: "This will give employers a greater awareness of the experience and competencies of potential recruits, but more than this it will prove to be of immense benefit to the skills and aptitudes of those same recruits." CRAC will run the programme with the help of facilitators drawn from participating universities, and public and private-sector organizations. Each student will have a mentor throughout the programme. Accreditation will be based on around 200 hours of work experience. This equates to ten hours a week over 20 weeks – a total already exceeded by most students. Participants will need to show evidence of skill development which will be facilitated through the Insight Plus learning resource. The Insight Plus consortium includes the National Union of Students and NEBS Management. The latter will award its introductory certificate in management to everyone who successfully completes the programme.
Further information is available on the CRAC Website, at http://www.crac.org.uk
