Thursday, June 09, 2016

Value of Student Work Placements #206

One of the duties I have to engage in at my College is to visit some of our third year students who are on work placement. It is a tedious task that takes up a lot of time - I hate it. It is part of each student's assessment for their work placement module - even though the module is simply pass/fail, they have to be assessed.

Image source: Highly Trusted College.
Nevertheless, when I get on site I get over my ennui and actually enjoy talking to the students and their supervisors. Over the past couple of weeks I have visited several students in their work placement including in Bank of Ireland, Dunnes Stores, and Hewlett-Packard. All seem to be getting on well and enjoying learning about their new roles. Students gain valuable experience which will boost their CVs and develop some fantastic skills before coming back to the College for their final year. 

I am struck by how much effort the companies I visited put into their work placement programmes. They take their responsibility in recruiting raw students for six months seriously. They train and mentor the students, and while they expect some value in return - in the main it seems to me to be more of a continuation of students' education and development, rather that the extraction of value from each student. Long may it continue!

No comments:

Post a Comment