Exclusive: An interview with Prof Christine Booth and Dr Simon Brown of Sheffield Hallam University (Part One)
 In April 2006, JobStreet.com had the opportunity to conduct an email interview with two eminent academics from the Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom.
Prof Christine Booth is the University’s Executive Dean in the Faculty of Organisation and Management, responsible for the leadership and management of the Faculty as well as the Academic Work Planning within the University. She is an experienced planning practitioner, researcher and senior academic in the fields of planning practice, equal opportunities, gender and diversity.
 Dr Simon Brown is the Director of Enterprise in Teaching and Learning. His main responsibility at Sheffield Hallam is to support colleagues to improve the student learning experience. He leads the University’s employability and enterprise curriculum development, and is active in developing innovative approaches to teaching and learning.
Here is the first half of the interview with Prof Booth and Dr Brown. The questions were posed to them by Quah Seng Sun, JobStreet.com’s Content Manager who is also a certified resume writer. Click here to read the second half of the interview.
Introduction
On behalf of JobStreet.com, I'd like to welcome you to our shores and thank you for the opportunity to conduct this special interview with your goodselves.
The employability of graduates, especially the fresh graduates, is a continuing concern for many of us. In the context of Malaysia, we have thousands of graduates that will join the workforce annually, finding employment either locally or abroad. It is an estimate of our government that the number of unemployed graduates within the country is around 60,000.
I have prepared below some questions which address the issues of unemployment and employability, and I shall greatly appreciate your time in sharing your professional viewpoints separately with us. From this interview, we shall be in a better position to share them with our JobStreet.com members here in Malaysia.
Interviewer: From your experience as academicians, do you believe that the curriculum at any institution of higher learning will provide graduates a reasonable chance of securing good employment in Malaysia?
Reply: From our knowledge of the UK Higher Education sector, all institutions do a good job for their students. However what we are all facing is a rapidly changing world in which our graduates have to operate. We are all asking: what do we have to do differently to enable our graduates the best chance for their future? The answer is likely to be that Universities have to change the way they help students to learn.
Increasingly employers are recruiting globally; so our challenges in the UK may be the same as Malaysia.
Interviewer: Do you see any difference in the curriculum used by local and foreign institutions to teach? What would they be, and what improvements can institutions put into their curriculum to improve the students' employability upon graduation? Do you have any examples of your work that calls you to recommend a change in the curriculum so as to tailor it to the needs of industries?
Reply: To date academics in the UK have tried to identify a single approach to improve employability. There was a large programme funded by the UK Government – Enhancing Student Employability Co-ordination Team (ESECT). Its findings are available on the UK Higher Education Academy web site at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/. The ESECT programme found that most examples of good practice focused on the embedding of one or two features in a curriculum, such as Work Based Learning, Skills development, or Personal Development Planning.
At Sheffield Hallam University, we looked at programmes of study that consistently achieved outstanding levels of graduate employment – 90+%. Our work found that they all shared a common approach to Teaching and Learning and shared a common set of curriculum features. We have developed these into the Sheffield Hallam Employability Framework.
Where courses did not include one or more of the features, their employability statistics were consequently lower. We therefore recommend that Universities consider the range of features covered by our Employability framework.
Interviewer: What are the top three measurements that you use to define employability of graduates in this very demanding and competitive market?
Reply: Our employability framework includes nine features that curriculum developers should embed into their planning. We do not focus on things students should do but rather on things curriculum developers should do to best help their students.
(Dr Peter) Hawkins’ book, The art of Building Windmills, helps us understand what we are trying to do – not just to focus on "getting a job" but to develop the skills, attitudes, abilities, etc, necessary to continue to gain employment through a career.
"To be employed is to be vulnerable. To be employable is to be secure."
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