Employability and entrepreneurship is one of the new areas of co-operation in Memorandum of Understanding on Sino-UK Strategic Collaboration in Higher Education signed in 2007.

Employability is seen as much wider than graduates securing graduate level employment on completion of their formal studies or providing careers advice to students. Employability spans issues such as:

• Curriculum design, pedagogies and teaching styles, developing necessary personal skills and creating industry relevant content;

• Developing the individual: Personal development planning; introducing creativity and enterprise, individuals taking control of their learning and future plans;

• Engaging employers in meaningful contributions in the HE curriculum.

Entrepreneurship and the development of the skills of "being enterprising", provides students with an attitude towards learning, which rewards and supports innovation, change and development. It is also about developing a "spirit of entrepreneurship". This is meant to provide not just economic benefits (meeting the needs of business) but also social benefits (meeting the needs of society)

The employability agenda has been addressed in different ways by different higher education institutions The UK has been developing solutions and initiatives in the area of employability and entrepreneurship and is currently reconceptualising and consolidating activity. Universities are challenged with helping to develop the global citizen for the 21st Century and partnership work in this area will benefit the development of both national and international models. The UK China partnerships will help to develop a forum for the international employability models.

UK-China Partnership Scheme

A UK-China collaborative partnership scheme in Employability and Entrepreneurship was launched in October 2007 to encourage UK universities to engage in equal partnership with Chinese universities which will both build on existing undergraduate / postgraduate programmes delivered in the UK and China and further develop these programmes to produce work-ready, employable graduates.

The scheme is to provide pump-prime funding to the selected UK institutions which will be able to successfully establish partnerships with one or more Chinese HEIs. The Scheme is expected to last for two years on the basis of satisfactory year 1 outputs coupled with proposals for building on the first year experience.

UK universities, who are interested in the scheme, please visit www.britishcouncil.org/pmi2-connect or email: pmi2.connect@britishcouncil.org for further details.