Published in The Australian, 25 January 2017

For recent graduate Celeste Flannery, it was a workplace internship that got her “over the line” when applying for her role as senior campaign manager with a marketing agency.

“I would not have even been considered for this role if it wasn’t for the experience I had gained on the placement,” she says.

Flannery, who graduated from Edith Cowan University last January with a marketing degree, believes it was the 100-hour placement she undertook at a ­design and marketing agency, along with a reference from the supervisor there, that made her stand out. “It was a big role and a big step for me, given my age (24); a lot of the candidates I was up against had eight to 10 years’ experience,” she says.

The placement, which provided hands-on experience in areas such as designing marketing plans and conducting client research, was facilitated by ECU as an opportunity for the students to put newly acquired theory into practice. It is reflective of a growing trend among universities to embed “work-integrated learning” within undergraduate cour­ses to ensure graduates develop a range of skills.

While industry-based placements have long been mandatory in areas such as education and health, they are becoming more popular across a diverse range of fields, says Denise Jackson, an ­associate professor at ECU who has been researching the area.

“Some universities are shifting to mandating work-integrated learning across their institution, some have already done that and others are moving in that direction,” Dr Jackson says.

But this has led to a mismatch between supply and demand for work-integrated learning programs, she says, as employers have often been slow to get on board and offer placements.

Dr Jackson was part of a ­research project undertaken last year by ECU, Curtin, Murdoch and the University of Western Australia that found a lack of awareness among employers of work-integrated learning programs available at the institutions’ business schools.

“The main barriers to hosting students on placement were capa­city to supervise, identifying suitable projects and not being approached by universities,” they found. The four universities partnered with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia to pilot a work-­integrated learning advisory service that would build relation­ships with industry, engage more employers and support them during the placements.

An evaluation of the service found that over a 10-month trial it had “raised awareness of the benefits of work-integrated learning among local industry and recruited a number of ­employers to ­engage in work placement”.

The service also helped to clarify for employers the meaning of work-integrated learning programs and the benefits they offer.

“Continuing the service, through government and local university funding, could further raise awareness, engage more employers and provide much-needed support to employers,” the evaluation said. While the National Work Inte­grated Learning Strategy, deve­loped by university and ­industry peak bodies in 2015, had created an impetus among academics to adopt the approach, Dr Jackson said a scaled-up version of the ­advisory service could help ­address some of the barriers facing employers through the provision of resources and advice.

“Resourcing is a big issue when you speak to employers ­because of the way the economy is at the moment; everyone is ­running on quite lean models,” she said.

Experts say that quality placements, which require resourcing, oversight and appropriate tasks for students aligned with their area of study, are essential.

Yet a separate study published this month by Jane Burdett and Sandy Barker, lecturers with the University of South Australia’s business school, found that some universities were encouraging students to negotiate their own placements, which was “creating a degree of risk”.

“There is greater student ­demand for placements and a shift of responsibility toward students finding and negotiating their own placements, but without careful management, the ­integrity of projects may be compromised,” Dr Burdett and Dr Barker found.

Dr Jackson said work-­integrated learning would probably evolve to reflect the chang­ing workplace, which would be one way of resolving the imbalance between employer engagement and student demand.

“We’ll see more virtual programs where the student is collaborating with a mentor in another state or working on ­industry projects or engaging in simulations; it won’t be all traditional work placements,” she said.

With a growing focus on graduate outcomes, Dr Jackson cautioned that while work-integrated learning often enhan­ced a student’s employability, it did not necessarily enhance ­employ­ment. “Rather than getting too bogged down with the employment outcomes, we need to think about the benefits in terms of ­preparedness for employment and broader skill development,” she said.