Student Experiences of the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme

106 ENGAGING YOUNG PEOPLE?reliant on these specific industries. A greater attempt should be made bythe schools to engage with employers in all sectors and channel youngpeople into an array of employment areas.The uptake of work experience is estimated to be high among LCAstudents; however, it was clear from the interviews that the lack of afinancial incentive is often seen as a disincentive for some students,particularly males. On this note, it was evident from the interviews thatsome students get paid for their work placement while others do not. Ifthere is a financial reward for participation in work experience, thenstudents may opt to increase the number of hours they work in their parttimejobs. Furthermore, students may opt for the type of work that paysrather than the type of work which can offer experience and more in-depthknowledge of the career.We find that LCA students use a number of different strategies toobtain their work experience. It may be that the least motivated and mostdisadvantaged students were using help from school linkages to obtainwork placements while more motivated and more advantaged studentswere using their own initiative or using personal networks.As outlined earlier, the LCA students generally felt positive about theirwork placement. Schools are flexible in how they allow students to pursuetheir work experience either in blocks of weeks or one day a week for tenweeks. Monitoring of work placements also varied across schools, withsome being more involved than others. The extent of employerengagement was evident, with most respondents indicating that theiremployer was willing to complete a work experience diary.It was clear from the interviews that many students had the ability toreflect on the tasks carried out and the nature of the skills acquired (if any).Some young adults could identify how useful the work placements were interms of generic skills such as communication skills, team-working andincreased confidence but were seen as providing less focus on problemsolvingskills. Others indicated how they learned to ‘be a worker’ and whatit felt like to be at work and exposed to the working environment ofparticular occupations. However, while others reflected on the task carriedout during the placement, they felt that little had been gained from theexperience in terms of skill acquisition.The role of work experience in career decision making differedaccording to whether career aspirations were in place before the workexperience placement. Some students had a clear idea about whatoccupation they wanted to pursue after leaving school and many of thesestudents used the LCA work experience to sample that occupation. Otherstudents had a vague idea about what they wanted to do and the workexperience was useful in helping them make the decision. However, manyof the students we spoke to, particularly the females, had no clear ideaabout what they wanted to do after school (a stark contrast to highachieving females pursuing the LCE). These students tended to rely moreon the work experience in framing career aspirations, but because theyknew less about the occupation from the onset, they often found thataccess to further education was hindered because of the restrictions of theLCA. This was, however, a general problem for many of the LCA studentswe spoke to.