ENHANCING STUDENT EMPLOYABILITY:

Higher Education and Workforce Development

Ninth Quality in Higher Education International Seminar in collaboration with ESECT and The Independent. Birmingham 27th-28th January 2005

Enhancing employability through lifelong learning:

A shared responsibility

Authors/presenters: Laurence Howells and Helen Gibson

Scottish Funding Councils for Further and Higher Education

Abstract

This paper describes an innovative process, led by the Scottish Funding Councils for Further and Higher Education, to stimulate debate and build consensus among providers, learners, employers, government, national agencies and others about the role of lifelong learning in enhancing employability. We conclude that enhancing learners’ employability requires a three-way partnership between learners, educators and employers: learners have to take responsibility for their learning and careers, but they need educators to help them, guide them and facilitate their learning. Learners and educators need employers to inform the curriculum, and to provide opportunities for learning from experiences at work. The paper describes the process through which our thinking has developed, and the key conclusions and challenges which emerge.

Introduction

The case for public investment in education is that it is in part a public good contributing to a better society, a better economy and better chances for all. Helping people to add value for their employers and to manage their own careers should contribute to this public good. And most learners are seeking improved life chances through their learning. This is why Governments are interested in the contribution that education makes to employability.

However, the policy debate about this issue tends to get confused, because we forget some of the realities about education and learning: learning is not something ‘done to’ people; education is not (just) passing on knowledge or facts; education is not (just) training in skills; employability is not (just) about careers advice or guidance; most people’s aspirations and careers are far more complex than the mental models we use often imply; and no matter how much we ‘know better’ than learners they stubbornly choose to study courses that they find interesting or valuable rather than the ones we assert would be better for the economy.

We have consciously tried to shift our thinking about how universities and colleges could contribute to enhancing learners’ employability, using techniques to ‘surface’ some of the underlying assumptions and values and base our policies on models which are closer to what is really going on between learners and educators. We think that this leads to much more fruitful debate about how we can improve what we do, because it reframes the debate from ‘how can government manipulate funding and regulatory regimes to make institutions deliver more employable graduates’ towards ‘how can we (all) improve the service we provide to learners and society’.

The background to this work

The Scottish Executive’s strategy for lifelong learning is built on a vision for:

‘the best possible match between the learning opportunities open to people and the skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours which will strengthen Scotland’s economy and society’[1].

In the strategy, employability sits alongside personal fulfilment, enterprise, adaptability, active citizenship and social inclusion as one of the key objectives of lifelong learning policy. The Scottish Executive expects the Scottish Funding Councils for further and higher education to contribute to the implementation of its strategy and policies relating to all of these areas.

In 2002, both Funding Councils set up working groups to look at career education, information and guidance (CEIG), and employability more broadly, in colleges and higher education institutions respectively. The Councils consulted the sectors and other bodies on the findings of both working groups. The responses to the consultation indicated:

  • that institutions, and the sector collectively, should take a strategic approach to CEIG within a wider framework of employability, enterprise and effective learning;
  • that enhancing employability requires a culture shift within institutions;
  • the need for a clearer understanding of employability and definition of the skills required to enhance employability; and
  • an emphasis on the importance of further study and training, extra-curricular activities, voluntary work and work placements in developing employability skills.

Around the same time, SHEFC and the Scottish University for Industry jointly commissioned a scoping study of the issues surrounding graduate employability in Scotland. One of its findings was that ‘the evidence from the policy literature points to the fact that government, in trying to balance the needs of different stakeholder groups, has not properly considered and defined what is meant by employability and therefore cannot identify which policy tools can and should be brought to bear on the situation. This has resulted in a lack of clear direction for action’[2].

All of this pointed to the need for leadership to generate a common understanding of what employability means for further and higher education, and to create an environment where learners, providers, employers and other stakeholders in Scotland are challenged to reflect on their responsibilities and where there might be scope for improvement. A small team from the Funding Councils’ joint executive was formed in October 2003 to take forward this work.

At the same time as this team was scoping out its work, the higher education sector in Scotland selected employability to be one of its two ‘themes’ for quality enhancement in 2004-05. A steering committee of practitioners, chaired by a university Vice-Principal, is overseeing a programme of activities designed to encourage academic and support staff and students to share current good practice and collectively generate ideas and models.[3]

What tools did we use to develop our thinking on employability?

We based our work on testing three hypotheses:

  • there are many different perspectives about what employability is and why it is important, and there are tensions inherent in those interests;
  • employability ‘belongs to’ the individual, not to learning institutions, employers, government or any other group; and
  • there is a gap between education provision and employability needs.

The approach that we took included:

  • one-to-one discussions with a range of stakeholders, mainly designed to test the first and third hypotheses;
  • workshops, involving a range of people with diverse interests, mainly designed to test the second hypothesis;
  • a series of seminars, each involving a group of people with similar interests, mainly designed to test the first and third hypotheses; and
  • a review of what current research and literature tells us about employability.

Over 100 individuals took part in this process, bringing in the perspective of learners, practitioners and senior managers in learning institutions, government agencies and the employer community.

Hypothesis: different groups have different perspectives about what employability is and why it is important

We focused on the perspectives of four groups: ‘learners’, ‘educators’ (including institutional managers, teaching and support staff), ‘employers’ and ‘government’. This was informed by discussions with individuals and groups from each of these categories and our review of the literature.

There was common agreement that employability is about an individual’s chances of progressing into and through the labour market successfully, and that these chances are determined by a wide range of factors which relate to the abilities of the individual as well as circumstances and the wider economic and social environment. But a closer look at the interests of each group led us to identify several points of tension. Understanding these points of tension is important if the debate about employability is to move forward constructively.

We summarise the interests of each group, as we interpret them.

Learners

There are many reasons why learners take up education and training, from the personal to the academic to the vocational. For many, it is a combination. However, most learners take up learning in the expectation that it will improve their prospects, economic or otherwise, in the short and the longer term. For some learners, career development is the primary focus for their learning. For others, it may only be in retrospect that they appreciate the contribution that learning can make, or has made, to this. For a small minority, career development will not figure at all as a motive for learning.

Educators

For educators in vocational disciplines, employability is closely equated with their core mission, and therefore there is a general view among this group that it needs no special consideration.

In the ‘non-vocational’ disciplines it becomes more complex. Some practitioners claim that traditional academic programmes naturally develop learners in ways that enhance their employability, and always have done; others believe that it is important to help learners recognise the abilities that they are developing through their studies and develop the ability to apply those abilities in other contexts; while others prefer to concentrate on their subject and leave employability concerns to learners, with help from the institution’s careers advisers.

Employers

On one level, employers’ interests are relatively simple: employers want to be able to select from a pool of ‘work ready’ applicants. But what this means, in practice, is far from simple.

In some occupations (for example, engineering), the ‘technical’ knowledge and skills required for specific jobs are consistent and well understood. Where there are training programmes aligned to these requirements, which are up to date with industry needs, individuals and employers can be fairly confident that there is a good match between what the individual’s qualification represents and employers’ needs in relation to technical knowledge and skills. In this respect, employers are concerned that there is a good fit between their needs and the design of education and training provision.

However, the evidence suggests that, irrespective of occupational sector, employers are often more concerned about a person’s broader capability and potential. For example, how effective is the person as a team-player? How well does he/she communicate? Does he/she have the ability to learn? Or creativity? Or initiative? How motivated is he/she? Employers are likely to be more willing to train workers in the specific needs of their job than in these broader aspects of a person’s capability, which tend to be longer-term personal development issues.

Government

Government’s interest in employability relates to two connected strands of policy: social justice and economic prosperity. At one level, employability initiatives tend to focus on groups of people in society with employability ‘problems’: those who find it difficult to find, and sustain, employment. At another level, government has an interest in ensuring that the public funds used for education bring value to learners, the economy and society.

Tensions

There are tensions inherent in these interests and perspectives.

  • The desire of employers to ensure an adequate fit between their current needs and vocational education and training provision can result in a curriculum driven by short-term needs and in which there is little space to focus on learners’ longer term needs, such as the development and recognition of generic capabilities.
  • There is often a perceived tension between academic values and employability.
  • The desire to measure the outcomes of education in terms of its contribution to employability can lead to simplistic performance measures based on first-destination employment statistics. This can be misleading: these data are a measure of employment rather than employability; they ignore longer term impacts on careers; and they are difficult to interpret given changing general economic conditions.

Hypothesis: employability ‘belongs to’ the individual, not to learning institutions, employers, government or any other group

We asked workshop participants to react to four theoretical models, each looking at employability from a different angle. The four models were:

  • employer-centred (learning provision is determined solely by the needs and wants of employers);
  • government-centred (learning provision is determined solely by what the government thinks is needed);
  • institution-centred (learning institutions determine what is available to learners, with no external influences or drivers); and
  • learner-centred (learning provision is determined solely by demand from learners).

These are all caricatures , designed to highlight and exaggerate tendencies. None of these models, in their pure form, would be desirable or feasible, although they all reflect reality in some respects. We used this process to gain a better understanding of the influences at work, to take a fresh look at what a successful model might look like and to draw conclusions about where the ‘ownership’ of employability should sit. Through the workshop process we identified possible benefits and drawbacks to the models.

The employer-centred model

The employer-centred model is one in which learning provision would be determined solely by the needs and wants of employers.

This model has some advantages, in that it could:

  • place a stronger emphasis in the curriculum on knowledge and skills which have currency in the labour market;
  • match more closely the priority that employers give to basic skills (grammar, spelling and basic numeracy); and
  • result in more flexible courses delivered at times and in modes which suit employers.

On the other hand, it could result in:

  • a narrow definition of ‘employability’, based on the specific skills needed by employers at any one time;
  • a limited choice of subjects and an over-emphasis on qualifications at the expense of a broad education;
  • short-term curriculum planning, subject to fluctuating demands;
  • failure to develop a culture of lifelong learning and enterprise (instead promoting ‘compliant’ learners and therefore ‘compliant’ workers);
  • failure to take account of equal opportunities and learners with special educational needs;
  • a lack of focus on career planning, including the ‘know-how’ that a person needs to exploit the assets they have developed (for example through learning and work experience) and market those assets to employers;
  • institutions attempting to respond to mixed and contradictory signals (there is no simple way of expressing employers’ collective needs, particularly long-term needs); and
  • ultimately, failure to meet employers’ needs, since most employers want to draw from a pool of potential employees with a broad range of knowledge, skills and abilities.

The government-centred model

In this model, learning provision would be determined solely by what the government thinks is needed.

This model could have benefits, in that the government:

  • has influence over the whole education system, including the school sector, and so could help to ensure that employability is addressed coherently throughout a person’s learning experience ‘from cradle to grave’; and
  • can provide funding incentives to learners and/or institutions to promote particular national priorities.

However, there would be drawbacks. For example:

  • the government could have a good overview but would not know enough about the detail of micro-economic issues to take informed decisions;
  • the government could not influence learner choices to the extent that this model would imply;
  • it is likely that the learning market would be distorted by tensions between the need for a longer-term view and short-term political gain; and
  • greater regulation of the further and higher education sectors could restrict innovation.

The institution-centred model

This model assumes that learning institutions determine what provision is available to learners, with no external influences or drivers.

The benefit of this model is that institutions are in a strong position to influence learners and their learning.

However, this could be an insular model in which:

  • providers’ own interests dominate curriculum planning, limiting learners’ choices, and with employers’ and society’s needs not being met effectively; and
  • for similar reasons, there could be a tendency to focus on the content of the curriculum, at the expense of helping individuals to develop confidence, motivation, enterprising skills and attributes through the learning process.

The learner-centred model

This model puts the learner at the heart of the decision-making process. Learning provision would be determined solely by demand from learners.

This model would have many advantages. For example:

  • it could help to promote a lifelong learning culture by encouraging learners to take greater responsibility for their own learning and development;
  • it could stimulate greater interest and motivation on the part of learners (leading to increased ‘markets’ for further and higher education);
  • it could lead to learners demanding more, promoting quality improvement;
  • it might begin to alter the balance between the subject-focus and the focus on generic capability, to include more of the latter; and
  • it could lead to much greater choice being available, as learners would be less bound by current offerings and delivery mechanisms.

However, we identified some significant weaknesses:

  • individuals cannot take account of the bigger picture. They need help to do that;
  • it would assume and require a level of responsibility, motivation and confidence which some individuals do not have; and
  • it would assume and require a level of knowledge and understanding that most learners do not have: learners don’t know what they don’t know, and most learners don’t know what they need to know.

None of these models, as caricatured, would be feasible or successful. However, the learner-centred model stood out as being the closest to a desirable model. Its strength is that it places responsibility with the individual for his/her own learning and career development. This model makes sense in a world where people need to be able to make the most of the opportunities around them in order to progress, or just to survive. And it makes sense in an economy which thrives on competition. But its strength is also its weakness. Individuals cannot be expected to take responsibility for their learning and development without help: from family, friends, teachers/mentors, providers of guidance and employers.