Keywords: employability of college students, community volunteer service
At present, with the increasing number of college students in China, the employment situation of college students in China is becoming increasingly severe. There were 6.3 million college graduates in 20 10, 6.6 million in 2010, and 6.8 million in 20 12. Facing employment, self-employment needs social experience, and employers require candidates to have certain work experience. These requirements are really difficult for college students who have just left school and lack social work experience. Therefore, how to make college students gain valuable work experience and practical opportunities during their school days, so as to enhance their employment and entrepreneurial ability, is an important topic that universities and even the whole society should pay attention to and actively explore.
In 2004, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and the All-China Federation of Students issued the Notice on Carrying out the Social Practice Activities of "Four Entering Communities" for College Students Volunteers in Colleges and Universities all over the country. Taking this as an opportunity, major universities have gradually established a platform for community service activities of college student volunteers. Various forms and rich content of community practice activities are fully rolled out. In 2009, the Ministry of Education issued "Opinions on Further Promoting Students' Volunteer Service Activities" (hereinafter referred to as "Opinions"). The "Opinions" require that colleges and universities should earnestly strengthen their leadership over student volunteer service activities, establish and improve a long-term mechanism for student volunteer service activities, and further promote student volunteer service activities; Taking the community as the practice base, the practice content is relatively diversified, the number of practitioners is enlarged, the professional categories are expanded, and the level of participation is clear, so that all college students who are willing to participate have the opportunity to participate in community practice activities, so that college students can gain corresponding work experience, acquire basic employability, and achieve the purpose of applying what they have learned and achieving success.
Let college students go out of the classroom, get in touch with the society, understand the problems existing in society and participate in the solution of social problems, which will help students to better integrate theory with practice, exercise their organizational ability, improve citizens' sense of participation and responsibility, motivate them to pursue social justice constantly and make contributions to the harmonious and stable development of society.
First, the basic situation of community volunteer service abroad
The United States has created a brand-new "service learning" education model combining community service and learning [1]. After years of practice and development, American colleges and universities have formed a multi-channel and multi-channel volunteer service system for college students. College students' participation in voluntary service is mostly carried out through service learning courses in colleges and universities. Most colleges and universities have set up service learning institutions, whose task is to establish links between university teachers and students and the community. Service learning institutions have established cooperative relations with non-profit organizations, schools, hospitals and government agencies in many communities, providing students with various forms of service learning practice opportunities. In the past 20 years, tens of millions of college students have participated in it and benefited from it.
In Spain, many universities offer social work courses to improve students' enthusiasm for participating in community service. Students can get credits by participating in community service work. Some universities in Spain also offer social work departments or degrees related to social work.
In foreign countries, many companies attach great importance to students' community practical experience when recruiting. To some extent, participating in community work reflects a person's sense of responsibility and ability to treat people, so it can often add points to his resume, thus greatly improving the competitiveness of candidates.
Second, the status quo of college students' participation in community volunteer service in China
In recent years, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to college students' social practice, and colleges and universities have also strengthened their attention to college students' practical activities. Universities and local communities have joined hands to carry out rich volunteer service activities for college students. However, the survey of college students' social attitudes towards community volunteer service conducted by the Department of Sociology and Social Work of the Law School of Guangxi Normal University shows that only about 10% of college students in China have participated in "multiple" community volunteer service, most of them have actually participated only once or twice, and one third of them have never participated in community volunteer service activities [2]. It can be seen that the popularization rate of community volunteer service in China is still not high.
Secondly, China's colleges and universities lack a perfect volunteer service system for college students. There are no related courses in this field, and there is no special organization to organize college students' voluntary service. Most community service activities come from the actual needs of the community rather than focusing on the improvement of college students' comprehensive quality and employability. They are often single in form, lacking in depth, institutionalized and regular, and lacking in long-term guarantee mechanism. The common ways are: legal consultation, making up lessons for students, visiting lonely old people and orphans, psychological consultation, cultural performances, etc. There is a lack of practical volunteer service projects and professional concept guidance, technical guidance and legal guidance for cultivating students' experience in starting a business and choosing a job, which needs to be further strengthened.
Finally, the lack of assessment standards for student volunteer service makes it difficult to scientifically evaluate the level of student volunteer service, and it is impossible for employers to provide reference for students' volunteer service ability in employment, which easily leads to blindness in recruiting people.
Third, the role of community volunteer service in colleges and universities in improving college students' employability.
In recent years, colleges and universities have gradually realized that community volunteer service plays an active role in improving college students' employability, professional skills, innovative quality and team spirit, and has an irreplaceable role in improving college students' employability.
(A) to promote the change of employment concept.
The process and experience of college students participating in community service can play a positive guiding role in setting their employment direction and changing their employment concept.
University education in China has changed from "elite education" to "mass education". At present, many college graduates have a vague understanding of the current grim employment situation, can't correctly evaluate themselves and position themselves reasonably, and simply take the economic development and wage level of the employment areas as the criteria for choosing jobs, and tend to be first-tier cities, large enterprises and high wages, with high employment expectations. As a result, there are two situations: unemployed and unemployed. Most college graduates always seem to give employers an impression that they are unrealistic, unwilling to suffer hardships, and they are too high to be low.
College students' participation in community practice activities, such as "Employment real-name registration system" and other community employment survey activities, can make them contact with groups at all levels of society and make them realize that white-collar workers and gold collars are only a small part, and there are many ordinary people, even those who can't find jobs for various reasons. Through personal experience and hearing, college students will realize something more important than decent work and high salary in the process of social practice, that is, work itself. Because work brings them more than you pay, the practical experience gained can just create more job opportunities for them.
(B) conducive to the promotion of professional skills and management skills.
Community volunteer service activities give students the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills they have learned in real community situations, arouse their learning enthusiasm and initiative, enhance their ability to integrate theory with practice, enhance their sense of belonging and identity with the team, and enhance their sense of group and cooperation.