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Access, Participation & Success case study: Progression into Higher Level Employment or Study

The background 

Research shows there are gaps in progression to higher levels of employment or study between different groups of students after graduation. Students from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and physical or mental health conditions, and those living in areas of ranked high in the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) often face specific barriers to career progression and further study, as do students representing a range of intersectionalities.  

The Open University’s (OU’s) Access, Participation & Success (APS) four-nation strategy sets ambitious targets to reduce these progression gaps, aiming to achieve equality of opportunity regardless of background.  

The OU created the Progression Task and Finish Group to address this issue and inform further efforts to reduce the progression gaps. Ellen Cocking, Head of Careers and Employability Services (CES), chaired the Group, which included colleagues from CES, the faculties and UK nations offices. The Task and Finish Group led to the creation of the Progression to Employment and Further Study Working Group, which is embedding reduction of progression gaps into the University’s day-to-day operations. 

Ellen comments that "Progression is about what happens after study and is critically important to our students and our organisation. We work collaboratively across the OU to help all of our students achieve positive outcomes from the time and energy they invest in their study to support their broader life and career goals". 

The challenge 

Data on student goals and career progression is collected nationally via the Graduate Outcomes (GO) survey 15 months after qualifying. This is administered by the government across the UK to alumni from the whole Higher Education sector. The GO survey was introduced in 2018, replacing a previous survey six months after qualifying, and has until recently been treated as experimental. 

Taking into consideration the different nature of OU distance learners compared to traditional university cohorts, the OU introduced its own survey to track progression in 2017. The Employability of Qualifier Survey (EQS) is run annually by the OU’s Careers and Employability Services (CES). It targets OU alumni three years after qualifying, giving more detailed insights into student progression after study. It also helps shape OU careers service design for the whole student and recent alumni population.  

The challenge was to work out how insights from these surveys and other data could help our efforts to narrow the progression gaps. We looked at:  

  • understanding the study and career motivations of students and recent alumni

  • defining the related support needs of students and recent alumni

  • how to design services that meet these support needs

  • understanding the overall progression picture for the identified cohorts

  • tracking the impact of current and future activities supporting progression. 

The approach 

 The priorities of the APS Progression Task & Finish Group were to: 

  • develop a better understanding of the barriers to progression and related needs of the groups defined in the Access, Participation and Success strategy

  • develop effective approaches to reduce the progression gaps. 

The Group worked on four key areas: 

  • Data and Evaluation - understand cohort needs, aspirations and develop evaluation measures

  • Student Experience - test nuanced approaches for these cohorts within the existing Student Employability Strategy

  • Alumni Engagement - deliver support and share alumni experiences with current students from the identified cohorts

  • Placement Activity - understand student and employer needs to inform a pilot programme. 

The Group prioritised students from Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and those declaring a mental health condition. This provided the additional context needed to test a more targeted approach to careers support and increase engagement by these students in career progression opportunities. 

Ellen Cocking says “It was critical that we understood what has been successful and what hasn’t, so we could learn from that. By better understanding the barriers to progression that are faced by students from under-privileged and minority ethnic backgrounds, we are now designing more needs-based work placement, career readiness skills and support services”.  

Key achievements 

  • Insights from GO, EQS and the Achieving Your Goals (AYG) careers support programme were fed into data analyses to create student profiles of the identified cohorts and data reporting dashboards available for staff across the University. These cover APS cohort profile data, career motivation and student engagement. This data-led picture of the circumstances and career motivation is informing targeted careers support activities and curriculum design, and will also enable progression tracking in the longer term. 

  • The CES Race Equality Working Group and CES Mental Health Working Group were created to design targeted careers services. Initial work included new resources to build student confidence and aspirations, enabling these students to see themselves reflected in the available careers support. The groups are developing new resources specifically aimed at building the career readiness of these students. Some examples:

    • Inclusive graduate programmes, a video by BT graduate programme participant Zeeshan Nazar. 

    • The webinar Mental health: Your rights to privacy and adjustments in the recruitment process, with specialist consultants from the EmployAbility organisation. 

    • An audio interview – barrister Hashi Mohamed on confidence and career navigation. 

  • The design of an internship offering for the APS cohorts, expanding on the current internships programme available to all OU students. Promotion of these activities used the inclusive approach to encourage as many students as possible from the APS groups to apply and secure internships – almost half of all the internships offered by the CES Internships team were successfully secured by students from APS cohorts. 

  • A new, more explicitly inclusive student communications approach was developed for careers services. Following consultations across the Higher Education Institution (HEI) careers services sector, OU Students Association Groups and amongst key OU EDI and communications staff, this approach embeds inclusive language and real-world success stories into communications activity. The aim is to ensure these cohorts see themselves reflected, welcomed and valued in careers communications. 

  • Review of alumni engagement materials to embed inclusive imagery and language, such as the alumni portal Careers page, the alumni welcome page in OpportunityHub (a jobs and resources portal provided for OU students and alumni) and newly updated graduation ceremony scroll inserts.  

What next? 

The APS Progression Task & Finish Group delivered useful insights and established baseline data against which future employability initiatives can now be measured. It was clear when the Group completed its work that the tasks taken on were on-going, both in terms of creating targeted support and opportunities, and in terms of measuring their impact on APS student progression to higher-level employment and study.  

As a result, the APS Progression to Employment and Further Study Working Group was created to continue working on the tasks defined by the Task & Finish Group and build good practice, currently focusing on: 

  • Deepening engagement in careers services and opportunities by students from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and those declaring a mental health condition, to impact positively on their employability. 

  • A pilot APS paid work placement scheme, targeted exclusively at APP student cohorts. Seventeen students have so far completed this scheme and the reaction has been extremely positive. This built on the existing growth of the virtual internship programme, which had been funded by Santander Universities. Work is now underway to finalise an OU Placements Policy so that internships can be delivered on an ongoing basis, with particular focus on engaging students from APS priority groups. 

  • Increasing OU staff understanding of and engagement with the APS Progression Targets by sharing best practice. 

  • Delivering the Elevate Mentoring programme as part of AYG to 50 mentors and mentees from APS cohorts. 

  • Further exploration of existing data and evolving measures of engagement and impact. 

 

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