Employability and enterprise
Employability has been defined as ‘a set of achievements skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations.’ These skills include: communication, leadership, problem solving and team working.
The Engineering Subject Centre has resources to support the embedding of employability into the engineering curriculum, including:
The Engineering Graduates for Industry report (2010) and the accompanying case studies provide examples of effective practices within current and developing engineering needs degrees that help to meet the graduate recruitment needs of industry.
Industrial placements help to improve the employability skills of engineering students. The Engineering Subject Centre / engCETL Industrial Placements guide for academics provides practical advice about developing links with industry and preparing students so that they get the most out of their placement.
This Audit Tool is designed to help teachers to consider the content and design of a course with respect to employability and to see how they could improve the course to better address the issue.
The Engineering Subject Centre’s Student Employability Profile, indicates the skills that typically can be developed through the study of engineering. The profile can be a tool to help you to improve student employability by making clearer the relevance of the content of your course to the expressed needs of employers. (Note: this is based on benchmark statements prior to UK-SPEC)
Reflective questions may assist students to reflect upon the skills they may have developed during their course. By raising their self-awareness of strengths and weaknesses they will be better able to prepare for their evidencing and exploitation in encounters with employers.
Employability was one of the Scottish Enhancement Themes for 2004-05 and publications are available from the Enhancement Themes website.
Entrepreneurship and enterprise
Skills for enterprise and entrepreneurship are closely linked to employability. As part of a DfES funded project in 2004-05, the Engineering Subject commissioned case studies that demonstrate different approaches taken to the teaching of entrepreneurship to engineering students. Engineering case studies are also available on this website which have been designed to be used to develop learners' entrepreneurial skills, alongside the extensive teaching resources on the Higher Education Academy's "Materials for Enterprise Learning and Teaching Matrix".
Related links:
National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship
Employer Engagement
The Engineering Subject Centre’s work focuses on the sharing of effective practice as departments respond to the needs of employers in industry and employee (or work-based) learning.
Related links:
