TRACING THE IMPACT OF WORK PLACEMENTS ON VOCATIONAL LEARNERS: IRELAND NATIONAL REPORT
One of the other key strengths of mobility experiences is that they offer VET learners a taste of their potential future careers at an early stage. There is evidence that this taste can affirm learners’ belief that they have chosen the right career, but can also challenge that belief. In both cases, the experience can influence the learner’s subsequent decisions. A survey respondent who had been studying childcare remarked that she ‘really enjoyed the placement abroad, got really good experience and went on to work in a crèche in Dublin after it – which I did not want to do before I went to Finland!’ Conversely, Aedín remarked in her focus group that she had progressed to higher education precisely because the practical nature of her placement showed her it was not what she wanted: It helped me to figure out what I didn’t want to do. Obviously, I didn’t keep doing film and documentary. I loved it, I just wanted to do something else as well. Because Erasmus was so practical, it gave me a chance to figure out that that’s not really what I wanted in life right now. I wanted to keep doing something more academic, which is what I have in my course now. I didn’t want to continue to keep doing the more practical side of it. So even if you’re not sure about it, that this is absolutely what you want to do for the rest of your life, it’s still a really good experience. It still shows you one side of things or one option and what it could be. It gave me clarity and choice.
Mobility Weaknesses The strengths of European mobility placements are, broadly, inbuilt in the design. By their very nature, mobility experiences require VET learners to travel away from home and encounter new cultures, new people and new work environments – which inspire the development of soft skills and the sense of new possibilities described above. Mobility weaknesses are more varied, but the most serious weaknesses described by survey respondents were due to a mismatch between the work placement and the learner’s level of vocational skill. Survey respondents whose overall experience was negative or very negative commonly mentioned that they had not received the type of work experience they expected from their host organisation: • ‘I didn’t get any practical experience from workplace, no interaction with the animals.’ • ‘It wasn’t really connected directly to my vocational education.’ • ‘My placement was badly organised and I was only there to do free labour, I learned nothing and was in a very unprofessional environment, I found the work experience to be very negative. However, I did find the overall experience a positive one as I am still in the country where my placement was – which would never have happened otherwise (in a different job of course).’ • ‘It was a great experience but it was more like a holiday! The college in Budapest didn’t have anything for us to do relating to our course. Over the course of the 3 weeks we probably spent 4 days in the college and the only work they gave us was a scavenger hunt map to complete which was good for exploring the city but that’s it. Great memories, great experience, but didn’t feel like work placement at all.’ • ‘Terrible for learning but it was great fun all the same.’
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