Dr Peter Sewell was invited by the British Council to present a workshop on the CareerEDGE model of Graduate Employability and developing ‘Mental Toughness’ to teachers of entrepreneurship in Chinese universities.

Dr Sewell was one of seven UK-based academic and entrepreneurship and employability education experts chosen out of a field of applicants from universities across the UK, to present at the UK-China Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education, and Graduate Employability 2016, organised by the British Council in Beijing. This was part of the UK-China Education Policy Week in the Chinese capital and was held at China’s number one-ranked Tsinghua University.

His workshop aimed to introduce university entrepreneurship and employability teachers to his CareerEDGE model of Graduate Employability and to explain the value of the ‘Mental Toughness’ framework – which can help students and graduates develop their self-awareness and identify their strengths and weaknesses.

The ‘Mental Toughness’ framework assesses people in eight areas; Life control, emotional control, goal setting, achieving, risk taking, learning from experience, confidence in abilities and interpersonal confidence.

Dr Sewell said: “This is about sharing good practice of Employability and Entrepreneurship teaching in universities and learning from Chinese colleagues about the ways that they encourage and support student innovation, entrepreneurship and employability. Entrepreneurship and Innovation education are right at the top of the Chinese government’s social and economic policy agendas at the moment and with over 7 million graduating students each year there is also a massive need for the Chinese to enhance their employability education in universities.  They are dealing with the slowdown in growth and shrinking of heavy industries like coal and steel.  The Chinese government sees employment into the future being much more reliant on, amongst other things, a massive growth of the SME sector.”

Following the workshop, he added: “The event was a huge success and an outstanding opportunity for us to learn about exciting initiatives at Chinese universities which aim to promote innovation in students. I believe that both the UK and the Chinese delegates learnt a great deal from the symposium and also built networks and connections that will provide mutual benefits long into the future.”

Lancaster’s Acting Director of Employability Louise Briggs said: “We are delighted that Dr Peter Sewell of the LUMS Careers Team was selected to represent UK universities at this prestigious event. This reflects not only Peter’s expertise in this area but Lancaster’s strong profile in China which has developed over many years.”