Establishing Careers Education within a Modular Degree System

For the first time at degree level in the United Kingdom, modular students at Oxford Polytechnic now have the opportunity of studying independently the complex and stressful task of career decision-making. The proposal to offer a self-contained 'graduate careers' module generated a lively debate, and a survey within the polytechnic revealed that academic staff were evenly divided in their support and opposition to the innovation. The four key issues identified were 'academic rigour', on or off the curriculum, 'mollycoddling' the students, and staff resources. The approval process also threw some light on the perceptions of careers counselling held by academic staff.