What has the ACS Foundation achieved so far?

Since its establishment in August 2001 the ACS Foundation has raised over $24 million in cash and in-kind donations towards its programmes. We have awarded over 1700 scholarships to students, with those students achieving pleasingly high results – over 35% have achieved all HDs, and over 80% have achieved a Distinction average or better in their subjects.

How often Scholarships offered?

Scholarships/Internships are developed in conjunction with Donor’s /Partner's contributions and requests. They start early in the academic year. There often more are launched at the academic year mid-point. The ACS Foundation website shows all Current and Past scholarships/internships.

What are the selection criteria for ACS Foundation scholarships/internships?

The selection for scholarships/internships is made by a selection committee and is based on high levels of academic performance, leadership and motivation and the applicants goals and plans and their contributions and participation with their community in their life so far. There is often a donor representative involved in the selection process.

How is the Scholarship Administered?

The ACS Foundation in conjunction with the University or alone administer the scholarship payments to the student. The scholarship continuance is dependant upon the student maintaining satisfactory academic progress each year of their course. Failure to achieve this progress may result in cessation of the scholarship/internship.

Will I be charged GST?

No! The ACS Foundation is an ATO designated gift recipient. The designated gift recipient organisation and the scholarship donation do not attract a GST payment.

What benefits do the ACS Foundation programmes deliver to the donor/partner organisations?

There are a number of significant cost savings for donors to the ACS Foundation scholarship program. The ACS Foundation is an ATO designated gift recipient (DGR) organisation and all donations are fully tax-deductible.

This enables donors/partners to address the issue of relevancy of graduates, in two different ways – the Grow a Graduate (GAG) programme allows the donor to specify the skills they want a graduate to have and the Work Integrated Learning (WIL) programme allows the donor/partner to train the student in actual work place conditions, and give the student first-hand experience so that they are better able to select relevant subjects and modules when they go back to finish their degree.

What are some of the Donor/Partner requirements?

Donors/Partners are able to specify the selection criteria the candidate must fulfil. Donors may specify the candidate’s hometown location, their year of study, their course and the preferred professional interests.

Is the student contract with the Donor/Partner?

No! The student signs an agreement with the ACS Foundation. The Foundation maintains close and good working relations with the Student, the Donor/Partner and the University.

As a Donor/Partner what does my business or I get out of sponsoring a scholarship/internship?

Scholarships /Internships have proven to be extremely useful in assisting students to graduate with ready-to-use work skills. Scholarships/internships are targeted on the best and brightest students who want to improve attractiveness to be hired.

These students have typically three or four job-offers to consider after they graduate. Donors compete to hire these students, especially the WIL scholarship/internship holders.

Who else could apply for a scholarship/internship?

The ACS Foundation attracts applications from students with special needs.

What has been the donors/partners experience to date with ACS Foundation students?

Donor’s experiences to date have been universally very pleasing and satisfactory. There is a number of reference donors available for other donors to talk to about their experiences, but one fact has been frequently observed is the high standard of ACS Foundation students. We work hard to ensure a good match between the donor and the student and if the right applicant is not found in the first round we discuss the outcome with the donor/partner prior the next application round which seeks to ensure the applicant meets their satisfaction.

Do Information Systems students qualify?

All ACS Foundation scholarships/internships, including WIL scholarships, are available to students enrolled in all the ICT related disciplines, depending on the requirements of the donor/s, and the ability of the university and their courses where the students are enrolled to meet the requirements.

How does an organisation establish a scholarship/internship?

Once the organisation has decided it wants to donate a scholarship/internship, it needs to sign a donor Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) document that outlines their commitment in terms of dollars, number of scholarships/internships, and commencement dates. The details of the scholarship/internship will be advertised and applications sought. Once a short list of applicants has been chosen, the donor/partner can participate in the final selection process if they wish.

Once the successful applicant is chosen, they will sign a student agreement with the ACS Foundation

What types of scholarships/internships does the ACS Foundation seek to award?

It seeks to identify any and all types of scholarships/internships that donors wish to contribute to. It does try to attract funding for EEO type scholarships as well as merit based scholarships/internships.

Grow a Graduate (GAG) Scholarship programme

Our “Grow A Graduate” scholarships are more of the nature of traditional philanthropic scholarships, where we encourage the donor organisation to be very specific about the type of person required, from which region or area, maybe at which university/universities, and what skills they require of that graduate. Note: Philanthropic scholarships do not define the desired graduate skills. We then set about finding appropriate applicants who meet their requirements.

How much does a GAG scholarship/internship cost?

The cost of the scholarship/internship is really up to the donor to decide how much they wish to donate. It is better for the students, especially those from regional or rural locations, if the scholarships/internships can go for the life of their degree. Unless this is the case there can sometimes be a reluctance to take the scholarship/internship up, as it may result in a financial commitment and burden for the family at the end of the scholarship/internship for the student to continue their course. Generally, the higher the value of the scholarship/internship the more competitively it is sought after, and the higher the quality of the applicants for it.

How does a GAG scholarship/internship work?

The ACS Foundation tries to encourage a strong relationship between the donor/partner organisation and the students. It investigates opportunities to combine periods of work integrated learning into the Grow A Graduate scholarship/internship, if the donor is receptive, and it is appropriate, because of the recognised value to all parties of WIL. Any mutually acceptable period such as during semester breaks, or even during a semester, can be investigated. These arrangements can be of great value to the students by offering them real life work experience, industry-mentoring skills, and assisting them further with the issue of relevancy.

Work Integrated Learning (WIL) Scholarship/Internship programme

The great value of work experience to students is that it gives them the advantage of graduating with both a degree and work experience, by experiencing a real work place and job situation, while at the same time allowing them the opportunity to understand what skills are relevant to employers. There is also value to both employer and student, as it enables both parties to establish whether there is a basis for a potential ongoing longer-term relationship, such as offering employment at the completion of their degree. There has been research to show that the WIL type arrangement significantly increases the retention of staff.

The ACS Foundation WIL scholarships/internships cater for periods of workplace learning. We have found that these scholarships/internships result in the graduates having more industry attractive and relevant skills, as well as being able to present themselves to prospect employers as having had that work experience. We have also found that it addresses a productivity issue, by ensuring that the graduate is able to be productive from the day they start employment, instead of requiring 3 – 6 months on the job training before they are productive.

However, the work experience can vary from one day per week (generally over one or two semesters) where the student still attends university on other days, to full time for varying periods where the student is not doing lectures at the same time. The critical factor has to be for the work experience to best suit the requirements of the donor/s/partner/s and the student.

Example A – an organisation is providing a number of scholarships for students to gain valuable skills by completing defined projects. These can be from 6 to 72 weeks but are generally 48 weeks under a WIL scholarship./internship The students experience real workplace conditions while doing those projects and gaining their skills, and the organisation gets the opportunity to evaluate the students over an extended period.

Example B – an organisation takes an intake of students every 6 months on 48 week WIL scholarships/internships, rather than take them all at the same time, in order to stagger the impact on the organisation.

Example C - an organisation has a WIL student for one day per week over a two-semester period.

The standard 48-week scholarship is generally delivered over a 52-week period to allow for periods when the student may not be available, but is still able to complete the full 48 weeks.

What benefits do the WIL scholarships/internships deliver to the organisation?

The WIL scholarship/internship programme helps donor organisations address the retention issue for first year graduates. Research has shown that (in Sydney and Melbourne) around 47% of first year graduates leave their first job in the first 12 months of work. Considering that most organisations need to spend 3-6 months training their new graduates before they are able to be productive, this results in a huge investment working out the front door. The research showed that 70% of students who had been through a WIL-type programme were still with their first employer after 7 years. This is a significant saving to the organisation.

There are other cost savings that result from WIL scholarships/internships compared to employment, which include no workers compensation, no additional employment related on-costs such as payroll tax or superannuation, and no industrial-relations complications. No guarantee to employ the student is provided.

Is it essential that the student complete a full year work experience? Would a summer vacation work experience be acceptable?

No – in fact any period is acceptable – but ideally it should be what suits the donor requests.. We run many different programmes varying from one day per week, to various periods of full time.

Is there a “standard” ACS Foundation WIL scholarship/internship?

Yes – the “standard” ACS Foundation WIL scholarship/internship is a 48-week scholarship, which is taken over 52 weeks to allow for any periods when the student may be absent and still fulfil their obligation to complete the 48 weeks. The normal cost to the donor of this scholarship is $34,000; this amount may vary depending on local conditions and the ability of the donor to fund the scholarship. Normally (as a rule of thumb) the WIL scholarship donor donation would be valued at around $100 -$ 125 per day, the number of days of the scholarship/internship can easily be calculated by dividing the amount the donor is willing to pay by those amounts. For WIL scholarships/internships there is an amount included in the scholarship/internship to meet the associated administration costs, this is normally around 15%.

Does ACS Foundation provide the links to work experience donors/partners?

Yes - We like to work with the universities and their current donors/partners as well as introducing new donors to them. It really does depend on individual donor/partner requirements. We have a number of national as well as state based donors/partners with opportunities available, and the demand for WIL type of students is increasing rapidly.

What are the most popular WIL scholarships/internships with many donors/partners – how do they work?

There are the six months (24 weeks) or twelve month (48 weeks) scholarships/internships. To be eligible as a scholarship/internship holder there are criteria that must be met. The student must be enrolled in a degree programme where the work experience project has a subject number and counts credit points towards the degree if there is a University requirement for the student to complete an industry placement during their course.

How does the one-year full time work experience fit into a degree? Does it mean that a 4-yr degree has to be created to cover this?

In the case of either one or two Semester periods of full time work experience it does mean that generally the length of the time to complete the degree has to be increased. The exception to that is if the work experience can be accommodated during semester breaks and completed in the normal 3 years. The two degrees can have the same academic content, with two different names, and those students who do the WIL period get the degree with the WIL recognition.

Is there a risk that students won't complete the degree if they are offered a job?

There is a chance this may happen, and it may happen in any case – however, the ACS Foundation strongly discourages both donors/partners and students to do this, and the ACS Foundation actively encourages the student to complete their degree.

How many students are likely to be involved in the WIL programme from a particular University? (Based on our experience at other universities)

This depends on a number of different factors and is not easily quantified for a particular university. It is something that can to an extent be controlled or managed by the University. If there is an appropriate degree programme that can be used the university can phase in the WIL programme over a few years. If it doesn’t already have one, the University may make a specific number of WIL type places available for their particular degree each year

If large numbers apply, that means numbers will be down in the 3rd yr, thus affecting revenue?

Generally, the experience has been the opposite – the WIL scholarships/internships are the most highly competitively sought and enrolments are up and not showing the decline that most other ICT courses have experienced the effect only is for the first year. (Also, see answer above)

Do overseas students qualify for this? How?

Overseas students can apply as long as they are enrolled in an appropriate course at an Australian university and have residency.

What benefits do WIL scholarships/internships provide to students?

One of the major benefits that WIL scholarships/internships provide to the students besides the real work skills they learn, is the opportunity to understand the skills that are relevant to industry the exposure to potential future employers and the opportunity for the student to impress the organisation. This combined with the benefit of being able to graduate with work experience as well as their degree is a major benefit.