Employer Engagement in Education: Literature Review
Author: Mann, Anthony
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Information Analyses
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Education Work Relationship,School Business Relationship,Employers,Literature Reviews,Educational Research,Work Experience Programs,Mentors,Career Education,Field Trips,Competition,Curriculum Enrichment,Educational Resources,Outcomes of Education,Teacher Surveys,Semi Structured Interviews,Focus Groups,Secondary School Students,Secondary School Teachers,Program Effectiveness

The subject of this paper is employer engagement in education. In this, the authors consider the range of different ways that employers can support the learning and progression of young people in British schools. The paper draws on a wide range of source material to ask: What are the typical benefits of different types of employer engagement? Do expected benefits vary by discrete types of pupils, by attainment level or destination intention, for example? How can teaching staff make best strategic use of employer engagement to support their pupils to succeed in education and then in the workplace? The questions present a first attempt to develop coherent frameworks for understanding the ways in which young people can and do experience the workplace and working professionals whilst still in education. The purpose of this paper then is to unwrap and disaggregate what happens when a young person in a learning environment comes into contact with the working world. The paper considers the range of common employer engagement activities (work experience, job shadowing, career talks, workplace visits, enterprise projects etc) and asks what can each be expected, typically, to give to a participating young person in terms of employability skills, attainment and employment outcomes, and changes in insights and attitudes. Moreover, it explores whether different types of young people, as defined by attainment levels, learning difficulties and engagement patterns, can be expected to gain particularly from different types of activity. This paper presents a review of research literature relevant to typical employer engagement activities and the primary outcomes (attainment and employment) considered. Given the relative paucity of high quality research material on employer engagement activities, the widespread inconsistent use of terminology to describe the same phenomenon, the availability of much research of interest in public--rather than academic--literature, and the fact that insights of value are often to be found in works addressing outcome areas rather than describing process, simple key word searches of research databases are unlikely to fully provide material of greatest value. Rather a critical exploration of literature is undertaken, following links between papers and drawing on the considerable library of research materials compiled by the Education and Employers Taskforce. [Early thinking about this paper emerged from meetings of the Education and Employers Taskforce Research Group. In addition to this paper there is a separate publication, &quot;Employer Engagement in Education&quot; (see ED546795), which analyses and discusses the evidence provided here.]