22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
Job-ready Graduates? A Case Study of the Tensions and Silences Within University Employability Agendas
Sally Patfield, Leanne Fray
The University of Newcastle, Australia
Presenting Author: Patfield, Sally
While universities have always been concerned with producing graduates with the necessary skills and knowledge to enter the labour market, a discourse of employability now pervades the higher education sector of many Western nations (Bathmaker, 2021; Boden & Nedeva, 2010; Healy, Hammer, & McIlveen, 2022; Succi & Canovi, 2020; Tomlinson, 2012). As part of the neoliberalisation and globalisation of higher education, performance matters more than ever, and universities are expected to not only develop the next generation of future workers, but ensure they are employable subjects.
Such discourses are increasingly controlled by the state, evidenced in governments developing employability agendas, identifying what constitutes employability traits and attributes, and measuring institutional performance vis-à-vis ‘employability’ (Boden & Nedeva, 2010). As a case in point, in Australia, the federal government’s Job-ready Graduates Package released in 2020 explicitly embraced employability within its new performance-based funding model for universities, aiming to encourage participation in degrees based on perceived employer demand (Department of Education, 2021) and simultaneously fixating on graduate employment outcomes as the largest determinant of institutional funding. These changes are significant as they represent the first time the federal government has attempted to influence course choice (Norton, 2020), reducing the cost of degrees deemed to be of ‘national priority’ and increasing fees in areas believed to not directly benefit the labour market, particularly in the arts and humanities. In so doing, these changes reflect the ongoing transformation of universities from social institutions into businesses (Connell, 2019), similarly seen in policy narratives that primarily position students as ‘future workers’ (Brooks, 2018; Brooks, Gupta, & Jayadeva, 2021).
While what actually constitutes ‘employability’ remains a key area of debate, in this paper we join others in maintaining that employability can now be seen as a legitimising discourse (Allen, Quinn, Hollingworth, & Rose, 2013; Boden & Nedeva, 2010), constructing and reinforcing particular kinds of student identities, practices, and actions. That is, students must ‘better themselves’ in order to become ‘employable subjects’ and ‘ideal workers’ (Allen et al., 2013; Bathmaker, 2021), so much so that it “no longer enough just to be a graduate, but instead [one must now be] an employable graduate” (Tomlinson, 2012, p. 415; emphasis in original). In this way, employability agendas arguably involve a form of self-management, self-maximisation, and development of an enterprising self (Bathmaker, 2021; Korhonen, Siivonen, Isopahkala-Bouret, Mutanen, & Komulainen, 2023), with students needing to develop an identity formed around the ‘employable graduate’ – to be seen as a person who is worthy of being employed and who can succeed in the competitive and increasingly precarious labour market.
Framed within this context, this paper investigates how current university students construct themselves as employable subjects, with a particular focus on how the legitimising discourse of employability is negotiated, adopted, transformed or rejected. Given the recent introduction of the Job-ready Graduates reforms within Australian higher education, our aim was to examine the formation of student subjectivities against renewed efforts to both enforce and enable employability, with the reforms presenting a unique opportunity to understand how university students discursively construct their identity against a pervasive systemic culture which now aims to make students ‘job ready.’
In 2022, interviews were conducted with 44 students at one Australian public university which had implemented a new strategic policy of ‘Work-ready Students’ as part of the Job-ready Graduates reforms. Framed through a post-structuralist lens, this paper draws on Foucault’s (1970) theorisation of membership categorisation, normalisation and naturalisation to examine how students occupy particular ways of being in the academy against norms of the ‘employable student,’ analysing student’s talk about their post-university aspirations and their negotiation of the university’s employability agenda.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe interview data reported on in this paper were generated through a larger study which set out to investigate: (1) issues of employability; and, interrelatedly, (2) the future employment aspirations of Australian university students. Adopting a case-oriented approach (Yin, 2013), the larger study was centred on one Australian public university which had recently introduced a new strategic focus on ‘Work-ready Students’ in tandem with a new policy of ‘Work-integrated Learning For All’ – mandating that all students, regardless of their degree, must now complete a set number of hours of work-integrated learning before graduating. The university is located in a large city and has a strong commitment to equity.
The larger study involved an online survey, held on the platform QuestionPro, in combination with in-depth interviews conducted with a sub-sample of survey participants. Given our sole use of the interview data in this paper, we focus our attention on detailing the methodology of the qualitative strand, with other details provided for context.
After securing institutional ethics approval in early 2022, recruitment involved three concurrent processes. First, a link to the online survey, accompanied by a short overview of the study, was published regularly on social media. Second, posters about the study with a QR code linking to the survey were distributed around campus, such as in lecture theatres, libraries, and cafeterias/coffee hubs. Third, course coordinators were contacted directly by the research team and asked to place a survey link and/or QR code, accompanied by information on the study, on their course intranet channels. At the end of Semester 1, 2022, survey responses were received from 199 students, including both undergraduate and postgraduate students, and those enrolled as domestic and international students.
As part of the survey, students were asked to indicate their willingness to be contacted to participate in a follow-up interview. All students who selected ‘yes’ were invited, resulting in a sub-sample of 44 interview participants. Interviews took place either via Zoom, phone, or face-to-face on-campus, with the mode of engagement determined by each participant, taking into account the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews were semi-structured in nature and lasted for 40-60 minutes. Each interview was transcribed verbatim and each participant was emailed a copy of their transcript for member checking. Prior to analysis, each participant was allocated a pseudonym to protect their identity. Interviews were coded using the NVivo 12 software program.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsOur analysis demonstrates how dominant discourses of employability and notions of the employable subject conflict with particular kinds of student subjectivities, so much so that employability agendas can actually be held in tension with the formation and negotiation of many student identities. First and foremost, while employability is often grounded in instrumentalist and entrepreneurial ideals (Korhonen et al., 2023), we found that students often speak about personal meaning, societal worth and forms of morality as they imagine their future careers, cultivating a different version of success in complete opposition to the neoliberal versions of selfhood promoted within employability agendas.
Our findings also show how the ‘employable student’ acts as a form of category maintenance that reinforces and legitimises a narrow view of the ‘universal student’ that discounts age, gender, race, discipline, and enrolment status. In this way, our interviews illustrate the ways in which students who don’t fit the mould of the ‘traditional entrant’ can actively reject the need to constrain to such limiting views, seeing employability as problematic and questioning its perpetuation of structural and systemic inequality. Alternatively, other students sought out ways to conform, striving to fit in within the institution in ways that were sometimes detrimental to their own wellbeing and identity development.
We argue that employability discourses normalise a vision of the employable student that is not accessible to all, nor of interest to all, creating tropes that legitimise narrow ways of being and forms of exclusion in the academy. Given the ubiquitous nature of employability discourses internationally, our research offers important implications for research and practice, highlighting the discursive silences around who is deemed to be normal, natural or deviant within employability agendas as well as the deliberating effects of the pressure to become, and be seen as, employable.
ReferencesAllen, K., Quinn, J., Hollingworth, S., & Rose, A. (2013). Becoming employable students and 'ideal' creative workers: Exclusion and inequality in higher education work placements. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 34(3), 431-452. doi:10.1080/01425692.2012.714249
Bathmaker, A.-M. (2021). Constructing a graduate career future: Working with Bourdieu to understand transitions from university to employment for students from working-class backgrounds in England. European Journal of Education, 56(1), 78-92. doi:10.1111/ejed.12436
Boden, R., & Nedeva, M. (2010). Employing discourse: Universities and graduate ‘employability’. Journal of Education Policy, 25(1), 37-54. doi:10.1080/02680930903349489
Brooks, R. (2018). The construction of higher education students in English policy documents. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39, 745–761. doi:10.1080/01425692.2017.1406339
Brooks, R., Gupta, A., & Jayadeva, S. (2021). Higher education students’ aspirations for their post-university lives: evidence from six European nations. Children's Geographies, 1-14. doi:10.1080/14733285.2021.1934403
Connell, R. (2019). The good university: What universities actually do and why its time for radical change. London, United Kingdom: Zed Books.
Department of Education, Skills and Employment. (2021). Job-ready graduates package. Canberra, Australia: Department of Education, Skills and Employment Retrieved from https://www.dese.gov.au/job-ready/improving-higher-education-students
Foucault, M. (1970). The order of things: An archeology of the human sciences. London: Tavistock.
Healy, M., Hammer, S., & McIlveen, P. (2022). Mapping graduate employability and career development in higher education research: A citation network analysis. Studies in Higher Education, 47(4), 799-811. doi:10.1080/03075079.2020.1804851
Korhonen, M., Siivonen, P., Isopahkala-Bouret, U., Mutanen, H., & Komulainen, K. (2023). Young and/but successful: Business graduates performing themselves as valuable labouring subjects. Journal of Youth Studies, 1-17. doi:10.1080/13676261.2022.2161355
Norton, A. (2020). 3 flaws in Job-Ready Graduates package will add to the turmoil in Australian higher education. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/3-flaws-in-job-ready-graduates-package-will-add-to-the-turmoil-in-australian-higher-education-147740
Succi, C., & Canovi, M. (2020). Soft skills to enhance graduate employability: Comparing students and employers’ perceptions. Studies in Higher Education, 45(9), 1834-1847. doi:10.1080/03075079.2019.1585420
Tomlinson, M. (2012). Graduate employability: A review of conceptual and empirical themes. Higher Education Policy, 25(4), 407-431. doi:10.1057/hep.2011.26
Yin, R. (2013). Case study research: Design and methods (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
A Study of Higher Education Students’ Competences and the Role of Universities in Preparing Students for the Labor Market
Zsófia Kocsis
University of Debrecen, Hungary
Presenting Author: Kocsis, Zsófia
Higher education is constantly facing new challenges and, apart from fulfilling its intellectual role, has to meet broader economic and societal expectations, which makes it increasingly important to educate professionals with specific knowledge who are most likely to meet the requirements of the labor market (Castro-Levy 2001, Hurtado 2007, Teichler 2011). Adaptation to these challenges and changes is reflected in policy decisions that continue to call upon higher education institutions to shape their curriculum and qualification offer to meet more directly the skills needs of a knowledge economy (Elliott 2017). The rapid development of technology and the digital world, as well as major changes coming with globalization, have significantly transformed the labor market, the content of the tasks to be performed and the expectations of employers (Pogátsnik 2019). Doing work requiring non-cognitive skills have not been automated, i.e. tasks and processes that require interpersonal skills, high levels of cooperation or emotional intelligence. Robotization and artificial intelligence do not affect soft skills. In the labor market, non-cognitive (soft) skills are particularly important alongside cognitive abilities and skills, the so-called hard skills. As the share of non-automatable work tasks increases, the demand for soft skills also grows (Nagy 2022). Globalization and digitalization have also brought about major changes in the labor market, transforming the content of jobs and employers’ demands. Continuous changes in the labor market and technological development in the 21st century also affects higher education institutions, and the literature suggests that competence development based on labor market needs will play an increasingly important role. In the 21st century, the need to develop competences has gained significance. Most education systems equip graduates with the cognitive skills needed to enter the world of work. However, it is soft skills that enable young graduates to become potential employees (Harrison 2017, Pogátsnik 2019).
In Hungary, there is a characteristic contradiction: while one of the tasks of higher education is to prepare students for work, higher education institutions often transmit a culture that is different from that of workplaces (Györgyi 2012). Whereas internationally, increasing emphasis is laid on improving the quality of education and on the real function of teaching and learning, Hungarian higher education is characterized by a teacher- and theory-centered approach, which means that knowledge is imparted through lectures and teacher presentations, but these methods do not allow for the development of non-cognitive, soft skills (Kovács 2016). Higher education curricula are still not reflective enough of labor market needs, and the skills acquired in education are far removed from what is needed in work situations (Óbuda University 2018, STEM-Hungary report). Employers’ experience is that it is not enough for new entrants to have adequate qualifications, but that they also need to have soft skills that enable them to adapt to labor market changes (Ailer 2017). While in international practice, many projects focus on the match between competences on the supply and demand side of the labor market (SAKE25, OntoHR26), in Hungary there is no common framework for measuring competences (Balogh 2014).
The gap between labor market needs and the competences possessed by graduates can be reduced through continuous measurement, student and employer feedback and the identification of relevant skills. The aim of our study is to explore the role of higher education in preparing students for the labor market and to examine how it helps students to acquire the skills that are indispensable in the 21st century. Furthermore, our research investigates graduates’ competences and the extent to which their skills are in alignment with the requirements of the workplace.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedSince 2010, the Hungarian Graduate Career Tracking System has been collecting data through its online questionnaire survey module on the status and labor market situation of recent graduates. Our Research Group submitted a data request, in response to which the Education Office provided the data to the research center. The survey is compulsory for all graduates (including graduates of traditional university and college programs as well as those of bachelor, master and undivided master courses) who completed their courses or obtained their degrees in 2015 or 2019, and optional for graduates of higher education-level vocational education and training courses.
The questionnaire consists of four major sets of questions, namely on studies, competences, current labor market status and demographics. Each thematic unit contains detailed questions related to the labor market. The data for secondary analysis were processed using SPSS 22.0.
During the data collection, respondents were asked to rate the skills and competences listed in the questionnaire according to how much they were needed in pursuing the profession they qualified in. The competences were placed on a five-point Likert scale, with 5 indicating that they were very much needed in the profession in question and 1 indicating that they were not needed at all. Respondents were then asked to rate the same competences according to the extent to which they possessed them at the time of graduation. The Likert scale scores were the same as before. If the respondent had not yet been employed in a job corresponding to their qualification, the questions on competences were not included in the online questionnaire.
Given the limitations of the database used for the secondary analysis, we also used qualitative methods to find answers to our research questions, for which purpose we conducted semi-structured interviews with graduate students. We investigated the role of universities in preparing students for the labor market and students’ perceptions of their competence development. The exploratory interview phase of the research addressed these questions from the perspective of expected and existing competences. We interviewed six graduate students who had graduated from a university of arts and sciences in Eastern Hungary in the previous three years. A heterogeneous focus group was formed according to field of study, age and labor market status in order to give us a deeper insight into the students’ experiences of the issue under study.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsOur investigation has focused on the role of higher education in preparing students for the labor market, based on the perceptions of graduates. This analysis confirms that the possession of soft skills has become increasingly valued in the labor market, but students’ self-reported possession of these competences is limited. The order of importance of expected competences does not always coincide with the competences possessed by students. Our quantitative research shows that there is a considerable gap between expected and existing competences in the following areas: problem solving, time management, planning skills, practical expertise and conflict management. Although these skills are highly important in the labor market, graduates were less likely to have them. These results are nuanced by the interview findings that university provides a good foundation, but there is not always enough emphasis on the development of soft skills that are important at work. In this respect, the contribution of the university is less evident, while interviewees emphasized the role of student work, mentoring programs and family in the development of competences.
One of the challenges for higher education is to meet employers’ needs by developing students’ competences. The analysis of similar large sample databases is of paramount importance as feedback. The significance of our research is also reflected by the fact that we have complemented these quantitative data intended for feedback with the personal experiences of graduates, which further nuance the role of university education in preparation for working life and competence development. During their years in higher education, students should be equipped with a set of competences that will ensure their integration into the labor market. Our current research contributes to this goal by mapping the expected and existing competences areas, pointing out where there is room for development which can contribute to graduates’ success at work.
ReferencesAiler, P. (2017): Duális képzés – tapasztalatok, eredmények. https://www.mkt.hu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Ailer_Piroska.pdf. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
Castro, C. M.; Levy, D. (2001): Four Functions in Higher Education. International Higher Education, (23), https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2001.23.6594
Elliott, G. (2017): Introduction to the special issue on ‘Learning for Work’, Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 22(1), 1-6.
Györgyi, Z. (2012). A képzés és a munkaerőpiac. Találkozások és töréspontok. Budapest, Új Mandátum Könyvkiadó, 70-78
Hurtado, S. (2007): The Study of College Impact. In Gumport, P. J. (eds.): Sociology of Higher Education: Contributions and their Contexts. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 94-113.
Kovács István (2016). Country Background Report Hungary, prepared for the HE Innovate Hungary country review, unpublished report submitted to the OECD.
Nagy, Á. (2022): Hardware-software: hard skill-soft skill –
az okokra épülő tervezés kudarca. Elméleti háttér. In: Steklács, János; Molnár-Kovács, Zsófia (szerk.) 21. századi képességek, írásbeliség, esélyegyenlőség. Absztraktkötet: XXII. Országos Neveléstudományi Konferencia. Pécs, Magyarország: MTA Pedagógiai Tudományos Bizottság, PTE BTK Neveléstudományi Intézet, 255-256.
Óbuda University (2018). STEM-Hungary - STEM-végzettséget szerzett pályakezdők és fiatal munkavállalók helyzetére vonatkozó nemzetközi kutatások másodelemzése [online]
Teichler, U. (2011): International Dimensions of Higher Education and Graduate Employment. In Teichler, U. (eds.): The Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society: New Challenges for Higher Education. Netherlands, Springer, 177-197.
Pogátsnik, M. (2019): The Impact of Dual Higher Education on the Development of Non-Cognitive Skills. In: In search of excellence in higher education edited by G. Kováts, Z. Rónay.
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