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Blog Competition Winners Announced
The 2008/9 Student Blog Competition winners have now been announced and can be found here.
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Annual Placement Student Competitions Launched
ASET is pleased to announce the launch of its two annual competitions for placement students.
Firstly, for all returning 2007/8 placement students, the essay competition offers a chance to write retrospectively about their placement experiences and help inform others about the benefits of undertaking a work placement. The winning 900-word essay will be awarded a £700 prize.
The second competition is for new 2008/9 placement students, who are asked to compete to become our new Student Stars bloggers. The winners will be asked to write three 300-word blogs about their ongoing placement experiences, over the course of the academic year, with payment of £200 for completing all three.
Both competitions aim to help ASET promote the benefits of work-based learning by highlighting the value of such opportunities. Flyers for both competitions and more information can be found here: www.asetonline.org/comps
We appreciate the assistance of all placement staff in helping to promote this so please feel free to copy, forward, and put on intranets information to help publicise the competitions.
The closing date for the blog entries is 31 October while the essays need to be received by 5 December.
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‘Are E-Portfolios an Asset to Learning and Placement?’ Booklet – Your Comments Please
Following the publication in the spring of the ASET funded research project ‘Are E-Portfolios an Asset to Learning and Placement?’, the researchers are now working on a glossy report summary booklet. It is intended that this will be widely circulated to introduce people to the topic and the project.
We would appreciate any comments you may have on this draft before it goes to print, particularly about the usefulness of the pros and cons and advice on how to choose a portfolio medium. Any major contributions will be fully acknowledged in it.
Could you please send any comments to aset@asetonline.org by 17 October.
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NCWE Awards – Call for Nominations
Careers Advisers and Placement Tutors throughout the UK are now invited to nominate organisations for the National Council for Work Experience Awards 2008/09.
The NCWE hosts the only awards event to recognise employers providing undergraduate work experience. Running for six years, the Awards aim to encourage and reward employers for their contribution to positive workforce development and for offering students in higher education the opportunity to develop key employability skills before graduation.
Spanning 11 categories it is not only employers who can enter their organisation for an award as nominations can be made in the following categories:
· Best Work Experience Provider - As nominated by a Careers Adviser / Placement Tutor
· Best Work Experience Provider - As nominated by a Student
Nominating an organisation is a simple and quick process and can be done online by visiting www.work-experience.org/awards before the deadline of Friday 12 December.
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CANUKE – UK-Canada student mobility scheme relaunched
ASET and its Canadian equivalent CAFCE have in place an agreement called CANUKE which supports the mobility of students between the two countries. Through the two national associations partnerships have been established between respective members (individuals) with an interest in exchanging students on work placements.
The main benefit of this scheme to UK HEI staff is assistance with the entry procedures for your students going to Canada. Canadian university prepared support letters regarding the exchange programme can be obtained which help the students circumnavigate difficulties they may encounter with security screening and obtaining work permits. There is also the potential to use these partnerships to arrange reciprocal visits of the students. The scheme has both UK Home Office and Canadian Immigration Department support.
For the relaunch, as well as redrafting our materials on the scheme which clarifies the entry procedures at both ends, we are also seeking to update our list of participants. In 2003 over 50 UK practitioners from more than 30 institutions registered for the scheme and many still have very fruitful partnerships in place.
If you would like to register an interest in the scheme, please complete and return this form.
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'Are E-Portfolios An Asset To Learning and Placement?' - Report
Following the recent dissemination event, this ASET funded research project is now available to read and download. Both an executive summary and the full report can permanently be found here. This report surveys and makes recommendations on innovative methods of placement assessment and has been described as “excellent review of an important and emerging method of assessment of placement learning” and “a seminal piece of work” by the peer reviewers. ASET hopes it will be of value to those contemplating these issues within their own institutions.
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ASET Code of Practice Revision – Incorporating Your Good Practice
When it was published in 2001 the ASET ‘practitioners’’ Code of Practice collated and incorporated a wide range of institutional good practice documentation (the full list is here). The Code is currently being updated to bring it in line with its sister QAA ‘policy’ Code (Section 9) and to extend its scope to shorter periods of work-based learning.
If your institution or department has good practice for placement documents, including updated versions of those listed in the 2001 Code, that you would like incorporated and referenced, could you please forward these to ASET, either in electronic or hard copy, as soon as possible.
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The Importance of Good Placement Support and Information
ASET welcomes news from DIUS that student juries have highlighted the importance of good information and support regarding career development and work placements: www.dius.gov.uk/press/09-04-08.html
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Change of Address Notification
ASET has recently relocated to larger premises. Our new address is:
ASET
The Work-Based and Placement Learning Association
Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS)
W11, 1 Moorfoot
Sheffield
S1 4PQ
Our phone and fax numbers remain the same (0114 221 2902/3) but our email address will now be: aset@asetonline.org
Post to the old address will be being redirected until the end of the year and the new email address will be run in parallel with the old one for some time too.
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Relationship with DIUS
Although ASET will now be based in DIUS, we remain a completely independent organisation, solely accountable to you our membership. However, we do feel this new arrangement will enable us to better fulfil our role of providing strategic leadership to the work-based and placement learning sector and advising the relevant policy makers.
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Health and Safety Guidance
New guidance on health and safety for placement students is currently being prepared by ASET (representing placement staff), USHA (university health and safety managers) and UCEA (responsible for all Universities UK’s health and safety matters). The Medical Schools Council will also be representing professional placements.
As you may be aware, a previous revision had been prepared and was submitted to the above organisations for approval last October. However, after detailed scrutiny this was ultimately not supported and the organisations have subsequently moved to collaborate on a fresh revision.
The new working party is determined to produce and publish the new guidance as soon as possible and it is the strong intention to do so by November 2008. This will supersede the current ‘Health and Safety Guidance for the Placement of HE Students’ which has been in place since 1997. The new guidance will be supported by legal opinion and we will also be holding a practitioners’ consultation event in June (details TBC).
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QAA Code of Practice - Amendment
Following feedback and discussions with the higher and further education sectors, QAA has reworded the text in paragraphs 17 and 18 of this revised version to clarify the advice given on collaborative provision. Printed versions of this revised section will be distributed to institutions in the next few weeks.. More details and a pdf copy of the document itself can be found here: www.asetonline.org/advice.htm#qaa
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Need A Degree Boost? - Try A Sandwich (Guardian Article)
www.guardian.co.uk/graduate/story/0,,2184525,00.html
Whilst it is well known that placements enhance students' personal and professional development, this new ASET study shows that there are also very persuasive tangible benefits of integrating work and learning. Anecdotally it is always said that placement experiences improve students, both in their final year back at university and beyond, but this research will provide further hard evidence of this.
The source of this Guardian article, an interim report picking out the headline figures from the research, can be found here. The full research report will follow, also incorporating the most recent year's HESA statistics, and with detailed academic analysis.
The reason placement students achieve higher final grades is primarily because many students come back from their period of work experience with 'value added'. As a result of personal development in their time in industry they will have acquired new levels of maturity, self-confidence, self-discipline and responsibility, which all transfer back into their academic work and subsequent performance at level 3. In addition, it can also be seen that it is the more conscientious students who elect to undertake placements in the first place because they more readily recognise the long term benefits of them.
With regard to the employability figures, the year's work experience, the development of work-related skills for the graduate marketplace and contacts in industry (with 69% of students being offered permanent jobs at their placement employer after graduation), all make placement students much more attractive to graduate employers. Of course it is also not just the work in itself, but also the fact that it is undertaken in a supported environment that benefits students so much.
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Placement Students and the Budget
News of the abolition of the 10p tax rate in the last Budget will affect the significant proportion of placement students who currently fall into the lowest tax bracket during their year (or shorter period) in industry, particularly in certain regions and subject areas. As a result of the recent Budget, their income tax contribution will be increased from April 2009, yet they are currently unable to obtain the working tax credits that it was implied would nullify this abolition.
Apart from gaining invaluable experience in industry, students can use this year to help cancel out some of their debt and this is an important factor in encouraging students to participate in placement schemes. This new initiative could therefore be seen as potentially harmful to the promotion of employability in higher and further education.
As a result we will be lobbying the Treasury on behalf of our members for tax credits for all those undertaking work placements as a fully integrated part of their course, to counteract this extra income tax. We will also be investigating other potential tax incentives that we might be able to attain to help encourage students to participate in placement schemes. We will continue to keep those involved in placement and work-based learning informed of this campaign here.
Some calculations about the figures involved can be found here.
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Membership Renewals
ASET’s membership renewals went out to our designated membership contacts at the end of December. As ASET is a charity, these subs, plus the hard work of the volunteers on our various committees, allow ASET to provide the services it does. The rate is just £150 for the year, and this one payment covers all relevant staff, in all departments, across the institution. If you are not sure whether your institution is currently a member, or would ever like to find out who your membership contact is, please contact the ASET office.
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