Strategic institutional approaches to graduate employability: navigating meanings, measurements and what really matters
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Accepted Manuscript (AM)
Author(s)
Bridgstock, Ruth S
Jackson, Denise
Year published
2019
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Show full item recordAbstract
Despite ongoing efforts by universities, challenges and tensions continue to exist in academic discourse, policy and practice around graduate employability. These factors can militate against the sector’s capacity to prepare learners for life and the world of work, because they promote unclear, and sometimes counterproductive and competing, courses of action. This article suggests that higher education institutions’ approaches to graduate employability reflect at least three concurrent aims. The aims relate to: (i) short-term graduate outcomes; (ii) professional readiness, and; (iii) living and working productively and ...
View more >Despite ongoing efforts by universities, challenges and tensions continue to exist in academic discourse, policy and practice around graduate employability. These factors can militate against the sector’s capacity to prepare learners for life and the world of work, because they promote unclear, and sometimes counterproductive and competing, courses of action. This article suggests that higher education institutions’ approaches to graduate employability reflect at least three concurrent aims. The aims relate to: (i) short-term graduate outcomes; (ii) professional readiness, and; (iii) living and working productively and meaningfully across the lifespan. The commitment to each of these aims is often tacit and ill-defined, and varies within as well as between institutions, and over time. This article attempts to navigate a productive path through the multiple aims and agendas in graduate employability, along with the definitional and measurement challenges, to identify pragmatic, workable approaches for universities. It suggests some actionable principles to enhance employability that address the tensions and challenges between the three employability aims.
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View more >Despite ongoing efforts by universities, challenges and tensions continue to exist in academic discourse, policy and practice around graduate employability. These factors can militate against the sector’s capacity to prepare learners for life and the world of work, because they promote unclear, and sometimes counterproductive and competing, courses of action. This article suggests that higher education institutions’ approaches to graduate employability reflect at least three concurrent aims. The aims relate to: (i) short-term graduate outcomes; (ii) professional readiness, and; (iii) living and working productively and meaningfully across the lifespan. The commitment to each of these aims is often tacit and ill-defined, and varies within as well as between institutions, and over time. This article attempts to navigate a productive path through the multiple aims and agendas in graduate employability, along with the definitional and measurement challenges, to identify pragmatic, workable approaches for universities. It suggests some actionable principles to enhance employability that address the tensions and challenges between the three employability aims.
View less >
Journal Title
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management
Volume
41
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© 2019 Taylor & Francis (Routledge). This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management on 25 Jul 2019, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2019.1646378
Subject
Education systems
Higher education
Specialist studies in education
Educational administration, management and leadership
Policy and administration
Social Sciences
Education & Educational Research
Graduate employability
graduate outcomes
university policy