Accrediting Part-Time and Voluntary Work Experiences

By:
Dr. Sue Palmer
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A national survey of first year students showed that more than 80% of all students had part-time employment of up to 30 hours a week. These students are also trying to study full time, which theoretically is a 38 hour week. At a time when employability is an important element of the student experience it seems wrong to ignore the learning opportunities afforded by part time work. By accrediting learning in the workplace for the 80% of students that had part time employment, it was felt that we would be denying the remaining 20% of students an equal opportunity to develop their employability skills at an early point in their academic career. Our institution already had an accredited volunteering module that had been piloted several years ago but had never run out as an option for all students. It was felt that this module should be revisited and developed so that students could use it for their part-time work or for voluntary work.


Keywords: Employability
Stream: Curriculum and Pedagogy; Student Learning, Learner Experiences, Learner Diversity
Presentation Type: 30 minute Paper Presentation in English
Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Dr. Sue Palmer

Associate Dean, Faculty of Humanities, Management, Social and Applied Science, Edge Hill University
Ormskirk, Lancs, UK

I am Associate Dean of a large Faculty with responsibility for teaching learning and assessment and the student experience. As part of this role I oversee student employability improvement. I am a National Teaching Fellow and my project for this has seen the development of a Certificate of Working Knowledge that aims at making students' higher level employability skills more explicit to enhance their employment prospects.

Ref: L07P0015