Civil servants were concerned by anecdotal evidence that students from the least advantaged backgrounds were not gaining the jobs they deserved. Some universities which were best at recruiting, say, working class young people and Bengali women, were not very successful at getting them decent jobs.In the summer, ministers acted by setting up a review under the chairmanship of Sir Martin Harris, the vice-chancellor of Manchester University Research conducted for the review confirmed the DfEE view. There was low awareness among students of how to use the careers service, particularly among the socially disadvantaged ­ those who were the first in their families to go into higher education ­ and mature learners. “Many students do not pay sufficient attention to developing career management skills early enough in their period of study and careers information and advice is often obtained too late to influence their study choices …those who appear most in need are often those least likely to use their careers service.”Finding that students did, indeed have very different experiences of careers services and that the resources devoted to the services varied considerably, the Harris review recommended that universities give both students and employers a statement of entitlement ­ in other words, what they could expect from the careers office. Carl Gilleard, the director of the Association of Graduate Recruiters, points out that you can complain about a service when you know what you are entitled to.

Careers services need to make early contact with students, said the review. In particular they need to make a point of identifying and helping those students most in need. Moreover, careers officers need to be properly trained; many of them are not.A group has been set up to ensure the recommendations are put into effect and its first task is to draw up minimum requirements for what the statements of entitlement should contain.”The work that was carried out during the review showed that there was a lot of excellent practice going on but that this was not necessarily consistent across all colleges and universities,” explains Patricia Ambrose, the chief executive of the Standing Conference of Principals. “There are issues about whether careers are integrated into the life of the institution and not simply a temporary building down the road. And there are areas such as access to advice that need to be worked at ­ how you get students to come for help early on in the course and not just at the last minute, and how you build careers into the curriculum and into the infrastructure of the institution.”One of the problems illustrated by the case study (right) is that individual university departments often do nothing about careers.

The academics teach the subject and interact with students without any reference to the big wide world of work. According to Tony Watts, the director of the National Institute for Careers Education and Counselling, an independent research outfit, an awful lot depends on the importance given to the careers service by individual colleges and universities and by individual subject departments Carl Gilleard agrees. “It’s the whole university that needs to inculcate the principle that helping graduates to find work is actually part of what it is about,” he says.”Some universities are doing a great deal to bring career management skills into the curriculum; others are not. Academics should not just be teaching their subject, they should also relate what they’re teaching to the world of work.” Another employers’ representative, Richard Brown, the director of the Council for Industry and Higher Education, echoes such sentiments. “We want to see much higher priority given by institutions to careers advice and to the development of employability skills,” he says.Careers services should get away from being placement agencies because there are professional people who can perform that role, according to Mr Brown. Students should go to the careers service to be pointed in certain directions, he thinks, not to find a job.

“Careers services should be focused on helping all individuals appreciate that they need to develop their employability skills.”Almost from day one students need to get a letter from the careers service saying ‘We’re here, this is our website, think how you are going to develop your skills.’ “That way the careers people can be freed to perform a more strategic role. One of their key tasks is to network with the students union, personal tutors and local firms to maximise the flow of information between potential recruits and their employers.One thing is evident as a result of the report. The worst institutions cannot be brought up to the level of the best ­ universities such as Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield ­ unless they receive more money.”It became fairly clear to us that universities that were most successful in increasing social inclusion needed financial help to provide adequate careers advice to their students,” says Sir Martin.l.hodges independent.co.uk. What is it? At A/S-level you study the language only, but you also learn about the culture; at A-level you can do literature as well as more of the cultural stuff All of it is targeted at non-native speakers. At A-level the topics broaden, and you can take some literature.

You can study, for example, the Arabs in Spain in the Middle Ages, or Egyptian writers such as Naguib Mahfouz, Ahmed Shawqi or Ibn Al-Muqaffa, who wrote a work that is quite similar to Aesop’s Fables.Why do it? Some do it because they are from families of Arabic origin and want to hang on to the language Some are Muslim and fancy learning Arabic for that reason. Others want to work in the Middle East, and some are married to Arabs.
What skills do you need? It helps to have GCSE Arabic. Plunging straight into A/S-level Arabic would be quite difficult, though not entirely impossible for those who can already cope with the language or those who have an affinity to languages.How much practical work is there? No essays in the A/S-level, though you do have to write a letter, a report or an article. Plus grammar tests, a comprehension passage and a translation from Arabic to English It’s all reading and writing, no oral or listening.