It is with honour that I delivered a session on Placement PAL at the annual ASET Conference last week at the 
University of York. With over 170 delegates representing 150 HE institutions from the UK, Ireland and Australia, this was a perfect opportunity to discuss current themes and trends in the sector. Entitled “Enhancing the Experience, Supporting the Student”, topics included BME attainment and the challenges for employability, tertiary education and a critical caring space to empower learners, their families and communities, the employability edge, and the impact of BREXIT amongst many others. One of the key concerns on the horizon is that of the Apprenticeship Levy which will go into effect next year. As this could very well impact the number of sandwich placements offered in industry, this will certainly be an area to watch.
From my session and resulting discussions, it became clear that BU is a leader in the sector as we are one of the few institutions with a Placement PAL scheme. With three delegates contacting me for further information for implementation at their campuses, it is wonderful to see that this area of student support is growing.
For more information on work based and placement learning: http://www.asetonline.org/