When Changemaker and Employability met education

The University of Northampton achieves 97% employability for graduates, however only 65% of these jobs are considered ‘graduate’ employment. In 2013, Northampton was designated an AshokaU Changemaker Campus due to its commitment to embedding social innovation at the heart of the student experience and curriculum delivery. A key area in which both these strands converged is around the University Centre for Employability and Engagement (UCEE) which is tasked to deliver an employability service for all 14,000 students across the institution that would drive up the graduate employability statistics, whilst simultaneously ensuring that social innovation was embedded as a core differentiator. Does social innovation contribute to improved graduate employability? And if so how can this embeddedness be achieved? The Centre took an outcomes based approach to addressing these questions and applied an adapted strategy typically used to develop innovation in curriculum design, Carpe Diem, to create Employability Plus. This approach places students at the centre of their own employability journey and encourages them to create their own employability pathway, rewarding engagement and recognising sustained and deep engagement with Employability Plus from pre-enrolment to alumni. This presentation shares the story of the birth of Employability Plus through the application of Carpe Diem; the importance of hearing and drawing on the student voice, and their role as co-creators of the resulting service. It then raises questions around the effectiveness of the new service to engender the skills and values of social innovation, as associated with being a Changemaker, in learners and whether it matters if engagement doesn’t develop those Changemaker attributes.