The Employability Ecosystem: Employer and Community Partnerships Within Curriculum Design and Delivery
Simon Massey: Associate Head and Education Lead for the Department of Sociology; and Liz Cain: Head of Sociology and Criminology.
Introduction
Social Science Futures is an undergraduate core module at Level 6 for students studying Criminology and Sociology. Led and managed by academics, the module prepares students for the graduate job market with a focus on building confidence and career readiness through collaborations with community and industry partners. The module brings employer and community partnerships into the classroom, whilst intentionally allowing students to see themselves in the sectors they are considering for a career.
The department’s research informed teaching is branded through centres with external profiles, including:
- Policy Evaluation and Research Unit – international reputation for impact in policy
- Manchester Centre for youth Studies – internationally renowned for supporting charity sectors and youth justice policy
- Drugs Policy and Social Change – recognised as a key voice in the debate of dugs policy and Greater Manchester’s Combined Authority
- Q-Step Centre – An internationally renowned centre for quantitative social science research, statistics education and data analytics placements with external partners
Our community and network partners who have collaborated on the module include but are not limited to:
- Government Social Research Outreach Team (Civil Service)
- Charity Sector: Pythian Club, Change Grow Live, Get Out, Wellspring, 42nd Street
- Private Sector: Transform Consultancy, ACOM Transportation Solutions
- Probation: His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation Services, His Majesty’s Probation Services
- Police: Greater Manchester Constabulary and Lancashire Constabulary
- HMP Buckley Hall
Community and industry partners provide content of what it’s like to work in their industry, whilst students assessed through a portfolio and group presentation where they answer questions set by the partners. Alongside networking, this allows all our students to improve their career literacy and articulate their employability in a safe space whilst replicating common recruitment practices. Thanks to the collaboration with community and industry partners, the module successfully provides Work-Integrated Learning and Authentic Assessment at scale, teaching between 400 to 500 students per iteration. In addition to employability value, the module also provides an example of equitable education with evidence of impact to awarding gaps and differential outcomes.
The module has also grown since starting and now collaborates with Practera, providing students opportunities to experience the sectors they wish to enter and gather feedback directly from such sectors.
Impact
The Module evaluation carried out by the University’s Careers and Employability Service shows that 91% of students felt more confident in their career aspirations at the end of the module in addition to significantly reduced awarding gaps. Qualitative feedback from students also highlights its importance in career preparation, including for roles in the Police and Probation services.
Student commendations have discussed the importance of the module being compulsory as means of preparing them in applying for careers, including the Police and Probation services. A key example was the mock-recruitment centre experience provided by Grad Core. Following taking part, students understood the transferability and value of such experiences at this point in their undergraduate journey.
A quote from a student discussed the importance of such opportunities:
“SSF gave me the opportunity to put my skills into practice and understand how I would perform when applying for jobs or working in a group. It was a fun, unique and much-needed experience that helped me feel prepared to dive into the job market and secure my first role”
Another student who recently secured a role with Greater Manchester Police said the following:
“It definitely helped my next steps, I did an assessment centre for this job so the Etihad mock was amazing.”
An independent evaluation form Lisa, Law, Careers Consultant at Manchester Metropolitan University said the following:
- The forward movement of students on the unit through the 5 way career readiness stages (47%) far exceed the institutional average for 22/23 (24.3%) and for level 6 (31.0%). There were far fewer moving backwards (7% compared to 20.4%) or staying in the same category (46% compared to 55.3%).
- For those who had the highest attendance, there was an even greater number moving forward (73.3%)
- Career Pulse tracking showed that the vast majority improved their score (91%)
Social Science Futures has helped the department grow to scaffold a curriculum of applied social sciences, driven by research and industry informed teaching. The module has been a success for the past two academic years and is now a permanent core unit delivered to all programmes in the department, with an average of 450 students per iteration.
The teaching model has also been introduced into our new programme and will be taught as a core module at every undergraduate level of study, where almost 1’500 students will receive enhanced employability value as part of their degree without any additional cost. The External Examiner of our new programme from Leeds Beckett university commended our approach and said this was something they had never seen before in Higher Education for Social Science or Humanities.
Why this is important?
Sociology and Criminology are both subjects typically regarded as non-vocational in their nature. There is an additionally emergent discourse where the disciplines associate with so-called low value, ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees. As a result, students may doubt the value of the skillset they graduate with, reducing confidence in securing a graduate career. In addition, our department proudly works with students from under-represented groups, who are currently evidenced to possess less cultural capital and are more likely to experience barriers to graduate level employment as a result (Tomlinson, 2017; Smith and Smith, 2023; Pham et al, 2024). The Department of Sociology at Manchester Met are proud of the students we teach. Our study body currently has 51% from first generational backgrounds, 44% from the most deprived areas (IMD 1&2), 33% with vocational qualifications, 25% with a declared disability and 26% from Black, Asian and minoritised ethnicities. Social Science Futures has enabled us, with the support and collaboration of community and employer partners, to change all students’ lives by:
- Bringing the employer and community partnerships to the students
- Supplying training for graduate recruitment
- Providing experiences reflective of sectors our students will enter
Thank you in advance for consideration of this award.
