Career Development Learning and Work Integrated Learning: Some Synthesising Reflections (Carrers Forum‪)‬

As rapporteur at this symposium, I have been asked to provide some reflections based on listening to the feedback from the working groups following the morning sessions and on floating around some of the groups and listening to their discussions. I have two general reflections to start with. The first is the importance of the presence of employers and students at this event. There are not enough here to make it possible for them to be represented in all the groups. But where they are present, the discourse is different, and richer. Getting them to attend events such as this is never easy: at one level it is not their 'business', as it is for the careers and academic staff who are present. And involving them in the discussions changes the language we use. But we need to involve both employers and students in the design of the programs we are discussing in this symposium, and we need strong processes to do so.