Employability : European experience s

1. Employability:European experiences Aleksa Bjeliš, University of Zagreb

2. 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);

3. 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;

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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: life-long learning a meaningful way to keep a high level of sustainability); How to reach this?

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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?

10. 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 secondcycle: - depending on student’s desires and academic abilities

11. 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

12. 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 otherlearning achievements • internationally understood, enabling a relationship with other frameworks Framework for qualifications of EHEA:overarching mechanism enabling an articulation between national frameworks

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. “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

17. HE Indicators (University of Zagreb in 2002/2003, within thepresent (“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;

18. 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, …

19. 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

20. (Some of the) Sources: Bologna seminars on: Employability in the context of the Bologna process (Bled, October 2004) Qualification Frameworks (Copenhagen, January 2005) Doctoral Programmesfor 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