Annual report to use! - Prospects

National Council for Work Experience: Liz Rhodes MBE, Director
review of the year
The past year has seen the activities of NCWE develop
and expand. Since much is going on in respect of student
employability issues within HE, NCWE has focused its
activities on getting messages across to employers that
they need to become more involved in this debate if they
wish to recruit the graduates with the skills they say they
require within their organisations.
NCWE believes the time has come to set standards for
work experience and, during the course of the year,
worked with GSK to develop a new student work
placement standard for their 12-month placement
programme for chemistry students. As a result, it was
awarded the Professional Development Programme
(PDP) Quality Mark jointly by NCWE and the University
Vocational Awards Council (UVAC). Plans to extend this
to other employers are now underway, as is a project
with Nottingham University to do something similar with
SMEs.
In order to highlight current good practice, NCWE
launched its Awards, which were well received. The
overall winner was George at ASDA, who offer a range of
placement opportunities to a high standard. Other
winners included Dunster Castle, a National Trust
property; Tony Gee & Partners, a small engineering
company; and DASA, the Defence Analytical Service
Agency.
Work on the Leonardo-funded project, led by CRAC,
continued. The aim is to develop a European Framework
for Work Experience (EFWE) and it has become clear
that the issues regarding the importance of work
experience are similar across the partner countries in
Europe to those in the UK.
Finally, NCWE was increasingly contacted by the press
during the past year seeking views on work experience
issues, an indication that it is making some headway in
promoting the importance of the topic.
THE
NATIONAL
COUNCIL
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EXPERIENCE
work-experience.org
Postgraduate Business Unit: James Townsley, Manager
The past year has been a successful one for the Unit.
The three main areas – sales, data collection and
postgraduate on-line application systems – have
worked closely together to ensure a consistent level
of high quality service to the sector.
The sales team has increased from four to five over the
year, and has been restructured in order to better serve
our postgraduate advertisers. The team has been stable
and combines strong sales experience with excellent
sector and client knowledge. This has translated into
increased revenue on many of the products in the
postgraduate portfolio year on year. For example,
Prospects Postgrad income increased by 15% compared
with the previous financial year.
The system for the collection of postgraduate data has
been improved, with all information being provided
online by the data compilers from a total of 225 UK
institutions. Last year, the data appeared on a wide range
of resources, including Prospects Postgraduate
Directory, Prospects.ac.uk, the British Council’s
Education UK web site and Guide to UK Education, as
well as the University for Industry’s web site, Learn
Direct.
The development of postgraduate online application
systems for HEIs continues to be a major element of the
Postgraduate Business Unit’s activities. Last financial year
saw 30 systems go live with many more in the development
phase. These provide a fast, efficient and effective way
for students and graduates to apply for postgraduate
courses at UK institutions and are proving very well used
by overseas applicants in particular.
The Postgraduate Business Unit worked closely with a
number of stakeholders in the HE sector, including CRAC
(the Careers Research Advisory Centre) in relation to the
publication of the Prospects Postgraduate Directory, and
the British Council for the Education UK portfolio. In
addition, useful relationships have been maintained with
UCAS and the National Postgraduate Committee.
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annual report - review of the year