Transcript Employability: European experiences

Employability:
European experiences
Aleksa Bjeliš,
University of Zagreb
Employability - multitude of aspects
(various contextual meanings & points of view):
• individuals: being able to earn one's living by
one's own work;
• society (wider general senses): being able to
fulfill a task which is meaningful enough for
society (or at least one or some of its members
to be willing to pay for it);
• labour market (more specific narrower senses);
- usefulness (to a degree that others are
prepared to pay);
- business, value for money;
- competitiveness;
Meanings:
• For individual: being able to compare favourably
as far as personal competences are concerned;
• For university (as an institution): being attractive
by offering good choice with regard to
developing competences;
Higher education institutions - four objectives:
- academic value - maintaining knowledge gained in the past
and widening, or correcting, knowledge in the future in a
systematic, verifiable, open-minded way;
- personal development - fostering individuality, character,
morality, integration into groups and teams, personal
contentment and happiness;
- democratic citizenship - active participation, team
integration, mutual respect, integrating into social processes;
- being meaningful to society - contributing to culture and
civilization, but also: ensuring “employability” of individuals to
their own benefit as well as for societal support and
advancement.
Employability realized in various ways;
- no simple way of measuring (i.e.
quantifying) it (but well-defined methods for
measuring the employment parameters)
- employability can be correlated with the
remuneration as an indicator of its
realization;
- but; discontinuity between study
programmes and remuneration is more
often a rule than an exception
Summary on employability:
Relationship (society – individuals – labor market –
higher education institutions): extremely rich and
complex - simultaneously common expectations
and aims and conflicting interests and tendencies;
Result: sustainable employability (in this sense: lifelong learning a meaningful way to keep a high
level of sustainability);
How to reach this?
Curricular development
Adjusting employability to changing societal and
individual needs – through continuous and
cautious tuning of curricula; bridging of studies
and professional activities;
Long–term planning - hindered by the fact that a
long time intervals are needed to see effects;
More preferable - evolution approach based on
guesses, small steps and checks; permanent
process of counseling, adjustments, new initiatives
→ entrepreneurial university
Flexibility in structure, content, orientation, study profiles;
Curricula and teaching procedures have to be:
- more flexible,
- less reluctantly realized through various teaching
methods by university professors;
Curricula should:
- foster generic competencies and soft skills,
- prepare students to be competitive at the labour market
and adaptive to specific demands
Less structured and less institutionalized (informal and
non-formal) learning - becoming more and more present
means aiming to increase employability
Bologna scheme (system of three cycles):
attempt to establish and develop such sustainable
(and globally competitive) system appropriate for
European space;
Baccalaureus, master, specialists, doctors of
science, doctors of art …
What is this? What for? Do we need them?
First cycle degrees
Aims of bachelor programmes:
Job market:
- variety of knowledge and skills
- specific disciplinary understanding
- personal and social competencies
- differences among students:
autonomous learner
capacity to approach new issues
communication and other transferable (soft) skills
Exit degree to the second cycle:
- depending on student’s desires and academic abilities
Second cycle degrees:
Aims of master programmes:
- to cover specialist contents,
- to lead students to detailed and deeper understanding of
subjects and methods,
- to considerably extend the boundaries of knowledge;
Master graduates are supposed:
- to have competencies in particular branches,
- to be able to respond to more sophisticated demands in
the working process and research activities
Characterization of qualifications:
Learning outcomes: what a learners is expected to know, understand
and be able to do at the end of a given cycle;
National framework of qualifications:
- description of all HE qualifications and other learning achievements
- internationally understood, enabling a relationship with other
frameworks
Framework for qualifications of EHEA: overarching
mechanism enabling an articulation between national frameworks
Specifications: descriptors of learning outcomes
After 2001 (Prague Conference):
Joint Quality Initiative: Dublin Descriptors – elements:
-
knowledge and understanding
applying knowledge and understanding
making judgments
communication skills
learning skills
Dublin descriptors (December 2004) - examples
HE short cycle (less than 3 years) awarded to students
who:
-
-
have demonstrated knowledge and understanding in a field of study
that builds upon general secondary education and is typically at a
level supported by advanced textbooks; such knowledge provides
an underpinning for a field of work or vocation, personal
development, and further studies to complete the first cycle;
can apply their knowledge and understanding in occupational
contexts;
have the ability to identify and use data to formulate responses to
well-defined concrete and abstract problems;
can communicate about their understanding, skills and activities with
peers, supervisors and clients;
have the learning skills to undertake further studies with some
autonomy.
Dublin descriptors (December 2004) – examples, cont’d
HE third cycle awarded to students who:
-
have demonstrated a systematic understanding of a field of study
and mastery of the skills and methods of research associated with
that field;
have demonstrated the ability to conceive, design, implement and
adapt a substantional process of research with scholarly integrity;
have made a contribution through original research that extends the
frontier of knowledge by developing a substantional body of work,
some of which merits national or international refereed publication;
are capable of critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis of new and
complex ideas;
can communicate with their peers, the larger scholarly community
and with society in general about their areas of expertise;
can be expected to be able to promote, within academic and
professional contexts, technological, social or cultural advancement
in a knowledge based society.
“Do we need them?”
(cycles, frameworks, descriptors, …)
Croatian national context:
- about 12% of population (from 25 to 65) with higher
education
- generally: working force not appropriately skilled, and
relatively expensive
- the most efficient part: tendency of economic emigration,
particularly among young graduates
- actual job market: unemployment rate - more than 15%
- actual national concurrence rate: last few years - around
70th on the world list, without signs of recovering
HE Indicators
(University of Zagreb in 2002/2003, within the present (“Central European”)
system):
Undergraduate cycle [first four (or more) years of study]:
51.700 (43.500 full time) students
7.644 awarded degree
Postgraduate cycle (two or three years):
5.100 students in 132 study programmes
705 masters (“magistar” – scientific or professional)
254 doctors of science
Either: theses (without studies) mostly for personal promotion (and not within some
research programme):
- average age of new doctors – almost 40;
Or: studies tightly connected with research and innovations (natural, medical and
technical disciplines) – only partially (indirectly, often symbolically) subsidized by
state;
- average age of new doctors – usually between 30 and 35,
rarely below 30;
Embarking into “Bologna convoy” – Croatian characteristics:
♦ time:
- “hibernation” of the HE system in the war and post-war intervals
(1991 – 2000); now: time for changes
- law: prepared from 2000 to 2003, reconsidered from 3003 to 2004;
♦ human resources:
- in last 15 years: number of students almost doubled, number of HE
teachers increased by about 3%; institutions without staff, moon-light
lecturers, …; degradation of research activities;
♦ motivations:
- preservation and development of national and cultural traditions,
competitive participation in EHEA (networks, collaboration
programmes, …) with our own advantages
- international concurrence - two (extreme) scenarios:
► either nationally profiled and diversified HE,
► or HE colonization (domestic involvement only at elementary levels,
reduced profiles of qualifications, selective brain-drain, …
Governmental committee for concurrence:
- Higher Education recognized as a crucial tool for
recovering from recession:
- improvement of competences and qualifications
In particular:
- needed: highest qualified experts capable to
generate new initiatives (shortage of ideas, not of
money)
- pool: postgraduate studies, together with
university research centers and scientific
institutes
(Some of the) Sources:
Bologna seminars on:
Employability in the context of the Bologna process (Bled, October 2004)
Qualification Frameworks (Copenhagen, January 2005)
Doctoral Programmes for the European Knowledge Society (Salzburg,
February, 2005)
http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no
Conference:
Governance and Education for Sustainable Development and European
Integration (Graz, 28 January 2005)
http://www.see-educoop.net/graz_conference2005