Employers and schools should work more closely together to improve student outreach and employability, according to the Institute of Student Employers.
Its research into school outreach programmes – Forging Stronger Bonds: Redefining Employer-School Engagement for Tomorrow – found that more than 70% of employers plan to invest more in outreach during 2024 as they felt engagements were valuable, but often lack the time and resources to plan or manage them.
Two-thirds of schools and colleges and 82% of businesses called for more employers to work together to deliver career activities. This could be by sector, skill, or career pathway, they suggested.
Organising work experience, for example, was a challenge for 74% of employers, many of whom cited a disconnect between supply and demand.
Another issue was a lack of student engagement for non-university career routes such as T-Levels, apprenticeships and higher technical qualifications.
School outreach
Schools and colleges said they wanted more in-person mentoring, careers assemblies, skills workshops and support with employability skills such as writing CVs.
Forty-five per cent of employers offer mentoring, the research found, but 42% of schools and colleges felt the level of one-to-one mentoring on offer was not enough.
Two-thirds said they would prefer employer encounters to happen during assemblies, while 63% felt they could occur during lesson time. Eight in 10 said encounters could be short – between 30 minutes and an hour.
For a third of employers, recruitment was the immediate goal of educational outreach, but two-thirds understood the need for investing in longer-term relationships with schools, in particular in line with the environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.
The ISE advises that employers engage early with school and college students, ideally before year 10 (age 14-15) so they can begin to learn about different potential career pathways.
According to its research, most employers begin to engage with students during or after year 10.
Working on “sector-based and cross-sector collaborations” with colleagues and other employers could also make outreach processes more efficient and effective, the report concluded.
Employer responses suggested a slight preference towards sector-focused collaborations, while schools and colleges would prefer to see cross-sector collaborations from multiple companies or industries.
“School outreach programmes are vital to ensure students’ transition into work successfully. They also help meet the recruitment, skills and diversity needs of employers,” said Georgia Greer, head of insights at ISE.
“While both educators and employers are keen to invest more, they have similar challenges around committing the necessary time and resources to make activities successful.
“By joining forces, the process becomes more efficient, it also provides a richer experience for students. There’s no need to be a lone voice and there are existing models to follow such as career safaris and sector events.”
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