“Social Mobility: How can employers and universities work together to improve graduate outcomes”
- Shirley Atkinson, Vice-Chancellor, University of Sunderland
- Nicholas Miller, Director, The Bridge Group
- Andy Youell, Director Data Policy and Governance, HESA
Shirley Atkinson used her presentation to the group to share the best practice work happening at the University of Sunderland. She noted that a very large proportion of students at Sunderland were from a widening participation background and that as often they came to university at the age of 21 they were counted as mature students. Going further to describe the student cohort Ms Atkinson reflected that a large proportion of the students are either working part-time or have caring responsibilities, and despite these additional commitments the students are determined and innovative and the university has set high ambitions for them.
Ms Atkinson described the programme of work that the university set up which looked at improving the career offer from the university and the students’ graduate outcomes. They found that it was common that the students were focused entirely on their degree outcome at the point of studying rather than looking further ahead to graduate employment. The university met with large and SME employers to understand their concerns for hiring. For SMEs it was clear that they felt it was often too risky to employ a graduate and on the student side there needed to be some work done on how the students could learn to sell themselves in interviews, overcome possible disadvantages such as not having contact for networking or gaining internships.
The university implemented several outputs. They created Sunderland Futures, which gave careers advice and support to students up to three years following graduation. They also discussed the relevance of the curriculum with employers and created modules to help with leadership and other skills. For SMEs they created an ‘intern factory’ in order to de-risk taking on a graduate. According to the DHLE data these changes saw a 16% increase of graduate employment over a two-year period in. Finally, the university also has campuses in London and Hong Kong. While students that are working part-time or have caring responsibilities aren’t able to take a whole year out, it is possible for them to be mobile in short bursts. Ms Atkinson reflected on how this opportunity will help to improve students’ confidence.