way connected to the world of work. Similarly, ranged from year-long ‘placements’ industrial placements to a couple of days work-shadowing. Given that most institutions did not provide much detail about the employability development opportunities, because they were not asked to, it was difficult to be clear about how significant such activities were or whether the same thing was being for example, placements ‘double-counted’: involving work shadowing. Where statistics were provided they were raw statistics and institutions rarely gave any indication of the proportion of students involved in such activities. Definitions turned out to be much more of a problem than anticipated. Even ‘graduate’ caused confusion as it was sometimes taken to refer to postgraduate students’ ‘enrolled and sometimes as who had graduated and were no longer enrolled’ and ‘ex-students sometimes as (of any institution) attending employment-related short courses’. ‘graduates It was not surprising, therefore, that some of the employability-related terms turned out to be less than precise in practice. for example, included placements embedded ‘Placement’, in the programme of study and external to the programme. Embedded ‘placements’ placements included thin sandwich clinical or professional placements; ‘year-long’ placements as compulsory or optional parts of courses; compulsory or optional semester placements; compulsory or optional placements of a few days to 12 weeks However, the sector-wide report still highlighted some strengths and weaknesses in provision. More importantly, the audit process provided feedback to the Welsh
way connected to the world of work. Similarly, ‘placements’ ranged from year-long industrial placements to a couple of days work-shadowing. Given that most institutions did not provide much detail about the employability development opportunities, because they were not asked to, it was difficult to be clear about how significant such activities were or whether the same thing was being ‘double-counted’: for example, placements involving work shadowing. Where statistics were provided they were raw statistics and institutions rarely gave any indication of the proportion of students involved in such activities. Definitions turned out to be much more of a problem than anticipated. Even ‘graduate’ caused confusion as it was sometimes taken to refer to ‘enrolled postgraduate students’ and sometimes as ‘ex-students who had graduated and were no longer enrolled’ and sometimes as ‘graduates (of any institution) attending employment-related short courses’. It was not surprising, therefore, that some of the employability-related terms turned out to be less than precise in practice. ‘Placement’, for example, included placements embedded in the programme of study and ‘placements’ external to the programme. Embedded placements included thin sandwich clinical or professional placements; ‘year-long’ placements as compulsory or optional parts of courses; compulsory or optional semester placements; compulsory or optional placements of a few days to 12 weeks However, the sector-wide report still highlighted some strengths and weaknesses in provision. More importantly, the audit process provided feedback to the Welsh
Defining%20and%20Measuring%20Employability%202001.docx