Carnegie students take part in national research project

Carnegie College students have been asked by the Carnegie UK Trust to take part in a unique research study into the attitudes of tomorrow’s workers to the UK’s economic prospects and their attitudes to enterprise and setting up their own businesses. Carnegie is one of 12 colleges around the UK whose students will be interviewing 16-21 year olds exploring their attitudes to their economic prospects, the importance of enterprise and flexible working opportunities along with the relevance of their education to the world of work. There are 4 students from Carnegie who will be acting as ‘interns’ for the project and inviting their fellow students to complete questionnaires. Project Leader at the Carnegie UK Trust, Jim Metcalfe, says ‘The hope is to come up with a realistic assessment of whether this generation wants to be more enterprising that the ones that have come before. We’ll also be looking at attitudes to entrepreneurs and the world of work, and whether students feel they are given enough insight into what working life is really like’. Image : Gaynor Jamieson Carnegie’s Employability & Enterprise Co-ordinator with Carnegie student Christopher McPhillips (27) a HND Business student, and Students’ Association Vice President, one of the 4 project ‘interns’ at Carnegie. Gaynor Jamieson Employability & Enterprise Co-ordinator at Carnegie College says “As a key provider in Fife of delivering workplace orientated skills, we are delighted to be taking part in the project.  As traditional patterns of employment disperse and become less relevant to more and more people, we need to instil a confidence in flexible working and individual enterprise and innovation.  This is vital to economic recovery, growth and community well being, and in order to support this, we need to better understand the views and aspirations of our younger learners and future workers.  It also provides a valuable experience of research activities for our students who will be facilitating the completion of the questionnaires on behalf of the Carnegie UK Trust. We are confident that the data from the project will allow us to share best practice in enterprise and innovation across the sector and shape learning to meet the expectations of tomorrow’s workforce.’ Barony College and the City of Glasgow College are the other Scottish colleges involved in the project. The findings are likely to be published in the early summer. Posted: 6 February 2012