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Both my dogs had bad allergies this week, so I am sleep deprived and my elbows may be a little sharper than usual. What did I read?
The problem with expanding work-based learning
Instead of chatting with me about cricket, all the Brits I know on LinkedIn seemed to be discussing the new Future Jobs Roadmap from Future Universities and Pearson.
Its central recommendation is hard to argue with: expand work-based learning. The report goes so far as to call it “the closest thing to a silver bullet” for improving graduate work-readiness.
Expanding work-based learning activities – including sandwich years, paid work
placements, live briefs, job shadowing, virtual work experience, among others – is
the closest thing to a silver bullet in addressing work-readiness. This is because
these activities develop the practical application of knowledge into a workplace which
evidence shows leads to positive outcomes across skill development, academic
attainment, and careers development.
The silver bullet language immediately raised my suspicions. I don't think silver bullets exist in anything as messy as higher education and workforce development. But my bigger problem came a few pages later. The report wants every undergraduate to have the opportunity to access work-based learning by 2035.
That sounds great. Who is going to provide all that work?
There is a definitional problem first. “Work-based learning” here stretches from sandwich years and paid placements to live briefs, job shadowing, and virtual work experience. Those are very different experiences with very different likely benefits. Job shadowing is not a paid placement.
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