REFLECTIVE WRITING

Third Assignment: Reflective writing

Third Assignment: Reflective writing

Introduction

The purpose of this assignment is to share my personal learning and experience from this module. In this assignment, I will examine what I have achieved through the learning journey on this module. For this piece of writing, I will focus upon the mainly self-directed learning aspect of my assessment where I was required to come together as a team to decide and plan a campaign strategy in order to affect change around an issue that I all believed in. I will also consider how I worked together with others as a member of a team as well as discussing what, with the benefit of hindsight I would have done differently. Finally, I will critically reflect on what I have learnt from what went right, as well as what I have learnt from what went wrong.

Discussion

People's ability to engage in self-directed learning has become increasingly important in contemporary settings. This development results from more broadly defined roles where people need to exercise personal judgment, more complex and inter-dependent work arrangements, and relationships that shift responsibility for employability and career advancement from the organization to individuals. Instead of relying on formal training and guidelines, people need to develop their abilities through the ongoing engagement with their task and social environment. Self-directed learning is defined as cognitions by which people attend to, or reflect upon, cues from their social environment in order to strengthen the confidence in their abilities at work (i.e. self-efficacy).

From this module, I was able to reflect on the concept of citizenship by examining the issue of youth unemployment in the UK. I have learnt that the government has been under pressure to act, in order to reduce the soaring level of youth unemployment, following the scrapping of the Future Jobs Fund which gave incentives to employers to employ younger people. It has been replaced by the 'youth contract' which introduces new apprenticeships and work experience opportunities as well as subsidies to employers to employ NEETS. The scheme seeks to enhance the employability of young workers whom have little or no experience in order to appeal to firms. The move will also temporarily reduce the number of unemployed youths. On the other hand however the government has announced cuts in funding to colleges and universities as part of austerity measures. Early 2010 the government replaced Educational maintenance allowance (EMA), a weekly allowance to 16-19 year old students from a poorer background who chose to carry on studying after GCSE's, with a bursary scheme. The new scheme targets only the most vulnerable students.

I was also able to identify that Youth unemployment is a major concern to the government as it has many economic and social costs. For a start unemployed youths have limited or no contributions to the economic welfare of the state. Unemployed youths can also claim benefits and hence are a drain on resources to the treasury. Therefore high levels of unemployment will directly harm the ...