The Sunday Times recently reported on the unemployment figures in the UK but with an interesting twist on the story. It’s certainly true that the numbers of adults not in work is very high – and unfortunately shows no real sign of dropping soon. Unemployment figures released in February showed that 8 million adults are economically inactive. However  compare this with other reports which show that firms are still hiring (20% of employers) – despite the recession and one which says “out of 1.7m new jobs created since 1997 81% have gone to foreign workers”.  Why is there such a  mismatch between the UK labour pool and the vacancies?

The biggest problem, and the saddest reflection on UK education seems to be the difficulty of finding UK graduates who are likely to be good employees. The Sunday Times reports on a director of a medium size company who interviewed 52 candidates all with fantastic qualifications. The director described the situation- “of the 52 applications, half arrived late and only 3 shook me by the hand and looked me in the eye”.  He hired these 3 but all had finished within a year because of their attitude – turning up late, not being able to spell and so on.

What’s this got to do with UIC? Well, one of the most interesting experiences we have had over the last couple of years has been developing and introducing a new course – Workskills. With changes to the visa regime in the UK it has only been possible for foreign students to take courses which include a work placement if that was part of a course which led to a qualification at NQF level 3 (roughly equivalent to A levels) We have been teaching this course successfully now for a year and have seen it benefit the applicants hugely. For the students, the opportunity to actually gain some work experience is invaluable – not as cynics might suggest because they want to take jobs away from British workers, but because it seems to be understood in every country in the world apart form the UK that being prepared for work is likely to make you more successful for work. So we find that students form all over the world – Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Russia and on and on want to add to their home studies – to their degrees, but learning a second language and gaining some useful structured work experience in a different country. Imagine how much better equipped this makes them than someone who has always got wonderful grades at school but no experience at all of working and no second language. That unfortunately is the situation most British graduates are in.

The UKBA and the British government view foreign students like this with huge suspicion instead of encouraging the experiences they can gain and the positive views they can get of being in the UK – something that can last them all their lives. Our feeling is that the Edexcel Workskills plus course is excellent, really useful and should be taught across the UK curriculum as a compulsory subject before anyone goes into university. perhaps along with useful IT skills like being able to touch type and run spell checkers!

CILT have recently reported that the most in-demand qualifications by employers are a competence in IT and then in a second language. If you ally this to understanding what might be expected of you at work then you’ve got a winner.

Hello Yoichi (from Japan) and Chotima (from Thailand), you have just been on a work placement in Scotland – could you tell me a bit about it?

Q: What course were you doing?

Y: I was doing a Workskills course at UIC in London and as part of the course I had to do a work placement. They arranged for me to go to a hotel in Scotland.

Q: What did you like about the experience?

C: Mainly that I have a chance to use English to communicate with English native speakers in order to improve my English language ability. I also had a chance to work with another people as a team which can make me adapt myself to be able to cope with another people.

Q: How about you Yoichi?

Y: I agree, I have a chance to speak English to native speakers, I have a chance to work with another people as a team which are very kind and they make me relaxed. So I can work with confidence.  Also when I finished to work early , my colleagues taught me about another duty. And this is a chance to be promoted to next duty.

Q: So you got on well with the other workers?

Y: Yes, I can learn how to cooperate with colleagues in kitchen in a real situation and I can go out somewhere with friendly colleagues.

C: I can learn more about English traditional culture and also I have a chance to promote Thailand and Thai culture.

Q: Did you learn anything besides the skills for the job?

Y: Yes, very important – I can learn how to manage my stress and pressure in real situation.

C: I can learn more about hospitality service which is the objective of this course

Q: How were the pay and conditions?

C: I get a good pay based on contract.

Q: Now we know something about the good things – were there any problems?

C: The weather is very cold and the hotel is quite far from city.

Q: was it a problem that the hotel was not near a big city?

Y: Actually not really but I couldn’t use my mobile. So I have bought new one.

C:  and the Internet frequently doesn’t  work.

Q: How about the work?

C: I must be very patient and also optimistic since it is not easy to work in another environment which is not same as Thailand. I have to walk a lot and carry big heavy plates with my hand which really hurt my fingers.

Y: Some colleagues who are not good worker and impolite and my hands were chapped from washing

Q: So what would you say overall?

Y: It was a fantastic experience and I would really recommend.

C: Me too

Q: Thank you both very much

These two students were following the Workskills course at UIC in London which includes a compulsory work placement. If you would like to have more information then please contact us at the school.

Many students coming to the UK find they want to gain some practical work experience while they are here. Sometimes this is a few hours, sometimes an organsied internship and sometimes a paid work experience. There are now a number of ways it is possible to gain a practical work experience (paid or unpaid) and to do this legally but you do need to know the regulations.

Before we look at that though, lets think about why it is such a good idea to combine a course of study with a practical work placement. For many years universities in the UK have run courses which have a sandwich year – typically these have tended to be business courses, modern language courses and a range of vocational training courses. The opportunities students have to put what they learned into practice is invaluable. Consider especially modern language degrees – students will typically spend 3 years at university in the UK and then 1 year abroad actually practising and improving their language skills; of course while they are abroad they are working and using the language. This is exactly what our international students coming to the UK want.

UIC is a founder member of Work Experience UK and has been instrumental in working with other schools, with Edexcel (the UKs largest examination body) and within UKBA immigration rules to develop courses which include a work experience. The UKBA regulations on working here are quite simple. You have to be doing a course which leads to a recognised qualification (at level 3 on the National Qualifications Framework), any work placement can be paid but cannot be more than 50% of the length of the course and the work placement must be an assessed part of the course. It is not possible for an English language course to meet these rules but UIC’s new Workskills course is fine.