new insights into value for business and university

In August 2011, I  had an  interesting conversation at NZi3 about the value of the sandwich year program to the university, which, frankly, I had not thought about so much since I had been concentrating on the business advantage. If the sandwich year idea does take hold and become part of the Uni program, this by itself could be used to attract more students to enroll at Uni. It would give Uni a competitive advantage in attracting new students. A student would come to uni because they get, as part of their education, one year of practical experience for their CV, a year's worth of salary to help pay their student loan, plus a greater likelihood of getting a job in their field when they graduate and be offered a higher starting salary to boot!    A sandwich year uni would likely obtain higher percentage employed graduates than other universities. Then we also discussed the job market in Christchurch currently. Businesses are hiring and the demand for high tech staff is high. At the same time, it is harder for businesses to attract talent to Christchurch due to the earthquake situation. The sandwich year program could be an ideal way for businesses to bridge this talent gap while at the same time finding those top students they can hire after graduation. We gave  a handout  to all business people attending the upcoming Software Summit I am continuing to look for more local businesses who may be interested. If you know of any, please refer them to this site and have them register interest.