The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

FEATURE: Queen’s scheme promises graduates a boost in tough jobs market

Graduation is a very daunting prospect for many students, as every year thousands of graduates leave higher education in the UK to join the competitive job market. However, Queen’s University have issued a press release promising to give graduates a boost in today’s challenging job market. This year, 194 QUB students will be awarded a City and Guilds Licentiateship Diploma for skills gained during work placements with a range of employers in both the public and private sectors.

BY KERRI-ANNE CAMPBELL

The scheme demands rigorous standards of assessment. In order to gain the Licentiateship Diploma students must have successfully completed two years of a first degree programme, have completed a year-out on work experience, and demonstrated competence in specified personal skills areas. Students who apply for the diploma must also register as a candidate before their placement begins, and provide a portfolio of evidence detailing their competence in academic, vocational and personal skills, along with a formal presentation.

Leading Academic and Head of Queen’s School of Education, Professor Tony Gallagher says, “City & Guilds enables students to acquire skills such as team working, good communication skills, creativity and leadership which, alongside their academic ability, will help them greatly.”

Queen’s formed the partnership with City and Guilds in October 1994 when it became one of the first universities in the UK to receive delegated authority to administer the Senior Awards scheme in Northern Ireland. The university maintains that City & Guilds Senior Awards offer a progressive employment-based route to higher level qualifications.

The majority of students are aware of how important it is to gain a head start in today’s tough and challenging job market, but exactly how valuable is the licentiateship diploma to Queen’s graduates? According to Gallagher, “The diploma is an investment that has always yielded rich returns for our students and is even more important these days as the economic downturn has made the jobs market more competitive.”

Marc Forte, Senior Awards Officer at QUB, stresses that, “Some research by City & Guilds has indicated that students tend to get a better grade in their degree as a result of their placement year and that a large percentage of these students get a job offer from the same employer after graduation.”

194 students doesn’t seem like a significant number, considering the extensive number of Queen’s students who are set to graduate this year, so is this scheme really combating the difficulties that a large number of graduates face?

Maybe not, but it is a step in the right direction for the successful applicants.

Tags: Gown, Kerri-Anne Campbell, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, student, The Gown

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 5:56 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.