Work placements for all plan ‘risks widening student divisions’

Student advocates have raised concerns over UK universities’ commitment to introduce work experience into degrees, arguing that students cannot be expected to undertake unpaid placements amid a cost-of-living crisis.

There have been growing calls across the sector to incorporate work placements into degrees as graduates face an increasingly hostile jobs market.

Earlier this year the University of Manchester announced a long-term plan to have all its students participate in some form of work placement before graduating, while Universities UK (UUK) recently released a framework recommending that all students complete work experience as part of their degrees.

However, the definition of “work placements” can range from paid internships to standard work experience, job shadowing and virtual placements, which are typically unpaid. This has sparked concern that students unable to afford to undertake unpaid placements might be placed at a disadvantage.

Lewis Wilson, vice-president for higher education at the National Union of Students, said that although he welcomed the “noble” aspiration to help graduates into the labour market, he called UUK’s proposals “tone-deaf”, given that record levels of students are undertaking paid work alongside their studies.

“More than 68 per cent of students are now in term-time employment. That’s doubled in the last 10 years,” he said. “Expecting students to also take on additional labour so that they can be more ‘employable’ is absolutely ridiculous…so many students are struggling right now.”

Moreover, he was not convinced that work placements alone would necessarily boost employability, noting that “one of the biggest problems is that there just are not jobs to go to”.

He highlighted the “Pay the Placement“ campaign run by nursing students at the University of Essex, which calls for “fair and better support” for medical students completing unpaid work placements and has gathered more than 16,000 signatures. 

“Universities are really trying to prove their benefit to the public right now but this isn’t the way to do that”.

Graeme Atherton, associate pro vice-chancellor for regional engagement at the University of West London, said employability schemes need to be viewed through an “equity lens. Otherwise, it risks, of course, being effective for some, but actually exacerbating existing divisions for others.”

There are also doubts about the logistics of establishing work experience opportunities for thousands of students. Calling such aspirations “ambitious”, Atherton noted that at schools, where students are expected to undertake work experience in year 10, it often falls on students’ parents to organise their work placements. This, too, can reinforce class divides.

“If you’ve got the ability already, through your networks or your family, to have the kind of work placement that will really boost your degree, then…you will look even stronger,” he said. “If you come from a background where you haven’t got any of those contacts, will the university step in and say, ‘Okay we’ll still provide you the placement of adequate quality’?”.

“If universities have the ability to provide these placements it can be very good for young people who can’t do it themselves because they don’t have their network to do it,” he said. ”So there’s the potential for it to be really, really powerful for your people.”

But he agreed with Wilson that “it’s not on its own going to be able to solve the graduate employability situation.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com