TRACING THE IMPACT OF WORK PLACEMENTS ON VOCATIONAL LEARNERS: IRELAND NATIONAL REPORT
These are attributes and skills that are in demand among Irish employers. The Irish Business and Employers Confederation 2018 paper ‘Future Ready: Improving Graduate Employability Skills’23 defined ‘employable’ people as those who: not only know their technical area or specialism but can also apply the knowledge and skills they have in varied and dynamic situations which allow them to develop their skills further. Capable people are deemed confident in their ability to: • take appropriate action effectively; • explain what they are hoping to achieve; • engage successfully in life and work with others; • continue their learning through their experiences in a changing world.
Development of Intercultural Competences Survey respondents felt their intercultural competences were substantially enhanced by their mobility experience: 75% agreed ‘a lot’ or ‘completely’ that their ability to work in an international environment had developed or improved due to the placement and a further 17% agreed ‘to some extent’ (Figure 15). Two-thirds agreed that their vocational placement had exposed them to a professional environment and culture different to what they would experience in Ireland (Figure 6). The experience also seems to have increased learners’ willingness to explore opportunities outside Ireland: 68% agreed ‘a lot’ or ‘completely’ that they were not afraid to study abroad (Figure 27) and 66% said that they were not afraid to work abroad (Figure 32) thanks to their placements. As one respondent put it, ‘It makes the idea of working abroad more realistic now that I have experienced it.’ Another remarked, ‘The biggest thing I gained from it was confidence. I now feel confident and able to work abroad, whereas if I had not done the Erasmus I would probably still fear moving abroad. Now I don’t.’ All of the interview subjects had travelled to some extent prior to the placement and none reported any significant difficulty with adapting to a new culture: as Colm said, ‘I’d like to work abroad again. I tend to be rather adventurous in terms of where the road may take me in terms of abroad. There’s quite the selection, to say the least. And of course I’d be open to go anywhere.’ After his placement, Mark progressed to higher education and became very active in the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) at his university. He traced this to the positive experience of meeting new people from different cultures during his placement, and wanting to make international friends. I definitely think meeting new people, that was important. Everyone was from a different background in the [host organisation] anyway, all coming from different countries. [At university] I was looking to meet new friends, so I knew [the Erasmus Student Network] was a perfect environment to meet new people. I hung out with a lot of Americans there, and then I met a lot of people from all over Europe and Asia, kind of just all over the world really. So I’m definitely internationally minded, yeah! I would go visit a lot of them because the ESN is an international European network. I got the chance to go to a lot of European countries and go to conferences, trainings, and meet a lot of people there. So I definitely have had that exposure to a lot of international environments, I guess. 23 Future Ready: Improving Graduate Employability Skills, IBEC, 2018. Available from https://www.ibec.ie/influencing-for-business/labour-market-and-skills/ future-ready-improving-graduate-employability-skills
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