Loughborough Employability Award
Yvonne Hamblin, Employability Development Adviser, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU.
Email: y.c.hamblin@lboro.ac.uk
Key words:
Employability, personal development, extra-curricular award, skills development
Aims and objectives of award
To raise awareness of skills development among students and to help them prepare for graduate employment.
To recognise extra-curricular achievements and enhancement of employability skills through those activities.
Award summary
The award recognises a student’s participation in a wide range of extra-curricular activities including part-time paid work and volunteering during term-time and vacations, engagement with courses and workshops offered across campus, co-curricular activities within academic departments and personal interest activities in which employability skills are developed.
The compulsory elements of the award comprise: completion of a skills assessment and action plan, and completion of 2 ‘quizzes’ requiring the student to read resources on cross-cultural awareness and sustainability.
Points are awarded for each activity, which has to be verified by a superviser or employer. The student is expected to reflect on the skills developed when submitting the activity for points. When at least 100 points have been awarded, the student can complete the application form for the award, based on employer competency questions. The student is also expected to submit a CV.
The scheme ran as a successful pilot in 2008/2009 with 30 second year undergraduates. The award was fully launched in Autumn 2009 with approximately 400 new places available each year, to first and second year undergraduates.
Students are expected to take at least 2 years to complete the award, which must be completed before the final term of their final year.
The award scheme is delivered and managed through the university’s VLE, Learn.
For a detailed version of the poster please see:
