Mandatory work experience for all
The recently published report from The Social Market Foundation, ‘Learning from Experience, how to make a high quality work experience for all a reality’ (Regan, N, Bhattacharya, A), presents a well-informed picture of the problems associated with enabling every school pupil to access a purposeful, relevant and rewarding work experience opportunity.
This has been a focus of mine for a number of years now, and prompted me to set up futureCodersSE, a community interest company providing digital services and training and using the income we generate and the projects we deliver to enable a rich experience of working in a software development team.
The problems highlighted in the report are the same problems I encountered when working with college students from 2000 onwards. I had noticed a real decline in opportunities for work experience and in opportunities to get into career-related jobs after education. I wondered what might be different about the way the interface between education and work was addressed in other countries, and about different approaches taken in the UK.
My Winston Churchill Fellowship, in 2014, allowed me to learn about this interface through visiting colleges in Scotland, Denmark and Japan. Every country has its own culture and I was really interested in the technical (Kosen) colleges I visited in Japan, where each student had a number of companies looking to employ them on finishing their education. I was told that each student would have around 20 employers to choose from and that local employers were always worried that they would miss out as students took up positions with global and national companies. These colleges were selective and offered higher as well as further education.
Since there was no system in place to get students to do work experience, or any indication that this was considered an important part of the educational offer, I wondered what made the students so attractive to industry. An important part of this is culture. Japan has an aging population and there is a recognition that it is vital to bring on young talent in order to sustain the economy. There is a very different political landscape where state and collective prosperity may be better understood than they are here. What did strike me was the difference in the way that students were prepared educationally. Although state-funded, the technical colleges I visited had the feel of a private sector experience. There was a great emphasis on extra-curricular activities, on projects and on competitions. With a 5 full-day week of attendance, the gap between education and work was much smaller for these students than it is for UK students where a full-time timetable, sometimes as little as 16 hours, may be spread over the week, with few extra curricular opportunities within the system.
When I was teaching I often wondered whether it might be possible to fill in the rest of the week for our students. The system, obviously, was incompatible with that but this is a funding issue as well as an organisational issue.
Should we be looking at the issue of work experience in a very different way? What is the purpose of work experience? Is it to develop those ‘soft’ skills, widen the social experience, learn about careers? Is it to allow the student to experience a different environment, one that is full of adults rather than teenagers? If it is any or all of these things then maybe they could be gained through a different type of experience, one that is tailored to the needs of young people and designed to develop these attributes. Could this be a richer experience and, crucially, a more equitable experience?
When I worked at The Challenge, the charity that developed the National Citizen Service, I wondered why that programme wasn’t compulsory. The combination of experiences it offered seemed rich and the sort of opportunities that should be available to everyone. If we want to prepare young people for the world of work, what better than for them to experience social action projects, volunteering, staying away from home, team building. Surely these experiences raise confidence, build interpersonal skills, create networks and even include experience of a range of occupations, roles and careers.
The young people we work with at futureCoders grow in confidence through the experience we are able to offer. They work in a team, with professionals, with their opinions and inputs valued and their contributions recognised. The most significant feedback we get across the board is an increase in confidence and this is so powerful. It can be the difference between applying or not applying for a job or an apprenticeship, or making a big decision about next steps in education. It does this because this is our mission. Perversely, outside this, because we are working so hard to ensure that we win projects, get funding and deliver for our clients, we don’t, as a company, have time to support many traditional work experience placements.
Is it time to think differently about work experience?
