ENroute Yearbook 2020-21
“ Eat Your Greens !” Reflections of the Employability Skills Programme ( ESP ) Sarah Borthwick Saddler , The Business School , Senior Fellow Kat Rezai , The Business School , Senior Fellow
In September 2020 , the Business School launched the Employability Skills Programme ( ESP ), a compulsory but non-credit-bearing provision . The aims of the ESP is to develop the Four Cs of employability skills : Curiosity , Communication , Critical thinking , and Collaboration . As ESP leaders in our subject areas , we manage the teaching and assessment materials for our local delivery and mentor colleagues on their approach as facilitators and academic tutors .
ESP gave our students the opportunity to reflect on their employability skills , which helped enhance their profile . However , some students struggled to understand the benefits of experiential learning , perceiving this as ‘ extra work ’ without seeing the value of developing workplace skills . On reflection , we realised the necessity to better explain the benefits of the programme and how it would help students develop a ‘ healthy ’ career profile . This is where our ‘ eat your greens ’ analogy comes in ! Reinforcing the core of ESP to our facilitators and tutors will ensure the values of ESP are communicated better to our students , strengthening the ‘ health ’ benefits to their career development . As ESP leaders , we have better embedded this into our student / staff handbooks for 2021 / 22 : Sarah leads on teaching delivery and operations ; Kat leads on staff / student expectations .
Reinforcing the benefits of building a ‘ healthy ’ career profile
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