Beyond school inclusion: secondary school and preparing for labour market inclusion for young people with disabilities in Spain

Research analysing good practices in the area of labour market inclusion for people with disabilities shows that the role of the secondary school is fundamental in improving employment opportunities. The aim of this article is to analyse to what extent secondary education in Spain prepares young people with learning difficulties for later inclusion in society and the labour market. Results from studies into good practices in secondary education have established which educational characteristics to take into account for pupils' transition to working life and the need for the school to lead this process. We contrast these results with the current situation in Spain by comprehensively analysing how current secondary education is facing up to the challenges of labour market inclusion for young people with disabilities. Following this, we propose guidelines for the improvement of educational practices in secondary education so as to foster opportunities for labour market participation, from an inclusive viewpoint, for young people with learning disabilities.     

Professional Doctorates and Careers: the Spanish case1

This article analyses the determining factors weighted by doctoral graduates when choosing their professional careers. In Spain, the analysis of such a group has been traditionally excluded from the empiric studies. On the one hand, the lack of databases made it difficult to see their professional situation, and on the other, a university career was understood as this group's innate purpose. The growing demand for qualified professionals in general and for those with a scientific training in particular has prompted the developed countries to carry out research on how to match the third-level training cycle and labour market needs. The analysis of this group's labour conditions allows one to assess whether the current doctoral education programmes satisfy labour market needs. The estimation of a multinomial logit model reveals the different factors when choosing a professional career depending on the area of knowledge. Personal characteristics, such as age, training, area of knowledge or job, as well as the expected wages become fundamental when determining doctors' professional future. Moreover, the results prove that a job outside the university is becoming a preferred option for doctors in certain fields.     

The demand for higher education in Cyprus: an educational policy perspective

The article examines the reasons for the high demand for higher education in Cyprus. At present, economic, societal, and cultural forces are widely accepted as responsible for the phenomenal increase in demand. A survey of secondary school final form students conducted in Cyprus by the author reconfirms the importance of these forces but also points to another demand influencing factor, namely, the students' psychological motivation in the pursuit of higher studies. The article discusses the policy implications of the findings and suggests the following as measures to help promote a better match between higher education choices and labour market conditions: the provision of greater and more accurate information to secondary school students on the employment opportunities available with a higher education diploma; the promotion of vocational nonuniversity fields of study among secondary school students; and the frequent and closer interaction between higher education institutions and the labour market.     

Student motivations,quality and status in adult higher education (AHE) in China

This article examines an important and yet neglected aspect of the relationship between higher education and the labour market in contemporary China. It does this through a detailed case study of student motivations, quality and status in adult higher education (AHE) in the city of Taiyuan, Shanxi Province. This is a region which has seen major economic and social changes as China makes the transition from a centrally planned to a market‐oriented economy. The case study is placed in that context. Using the theoretical perspective of human capital theory, the article examines the role of education in labour markets. It then considers the relevance of lifelong learning to the research and provides an account of the methodological approach used in the study. The findings of the research are then presented according to the key research questions. These are that the utilitarianism which exists in AHE provision and demand in China has had an impact upon the quality of provision and learning in this sector. This will definitely not help to develop a lifelong‐learning‐based society and promote citizens’ all‐round development as suggested by government regulations on lifelong learning.     

The skills cline: higher education and the supply-demand complex in South Africa

This paper investigates the relationship between Grade 12 learner preferences for study in higher education, student enrolment in higher education programmes, and student graduations in different programme areas, considering the match between these supply-side indicators and a forecast of skills demand in South Africa as a first step towards ascertaining the extent to which the higher education system is meeting the demand for skills in the labour market. While learner preferences are predominantly for study in the field of Science, Engineering and Technology (SET), student graduations are predominantly in the Humanities. And since a large proportion of scarce-skills areas are SET-related, this creates a mismatch that has implications for the economic development of the country. Simultaneously, however, the demand for educators (school teachers and academics) is even greater: the strongest discrete demand is for educators, followed by that for managers. The paper concludes by urging more concerted development of teachers and managers.     

Participation in job-related training in European countries: the impact of skill supply and demand characteristics

Ageing populations and accelerating economic change make it increasingly important to update the skill levels of populations over the whole life course. Adult education is believed to allow adults’ skills to adapt continuously to constantly changing economic requirements. Both research into adult education, and discussions on lifelong learning policies have been dominated by a supply side view of the labour market (the human capital approach), which has tended to underplay the role of the demand side of the labour market. This paper aims to extend previous analyses by examining how both labour supply and demand characteristics influence participation in non-formal job-related education in countries with different skill formation systems. The paper emphasises skill use at work. The purpose is to understand better the relationship between participation in adult education and workers’ skills profiles as well as the extent to which those skills are used in jobs and how this relationship differs in different countries. We used data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies and applied logistic regression analysis.     

北京市高中生对高等教育需求的实证分析

对北京市高中生对高等教育的需求进行了问卷调查。数据分析发现,北京市高中生对高等教育的需求较为强烈,但这种需求并非刚性的,而是具有替代性和可塑性的;北京市的高等教育需求主要受制于经济因素的影响,家庭资源越是丰富,高等教育需求越是强烈;而性别、家庭规模以及父母的态度和努力,对于子女的高等教育需求影响不大,高等教育需求的动力主要来自于受教育者自身。     

Human capital linkages to labour productivity: implications from Thai manufacturers

Human capital investment is a necessary condition for improving labour market outcomes in most countries. Empirical studies to investigate human capital and its linkages on the labour demand side are, however, relatively scarce due to limitations of firm-level data-sets. Using firm-level data from the Thai manufacturing sector, this paper aims to investigate the effects of skill and human capital on labour productivity. Costs and benefits of human capital improvement are compared indicating that hiring workers who have higher education as well as providing them with in-service training has a statistically and significantly positive impact on an increase in labour productivity. However, hiring workers who have higher education yields less benefit than costs which come from higher average wage expenditures. However, providing training should contribute more benefit than cost. Besides education and training measures, we also measure workers’ skill levels into cognitive skills and non-cognitive skills and find that skill in information technology is found to be the most important cognitive skill for increasing labour productivity among Thai manufacturers. Non-cognitive skills such as those in leadership, time-management and communication are also important and seem to have positive relationship to labour productivity among Thai manufacturers.     

SOME PROBLEMS INVOLVED IN THE EXPERIMENTAL COMPARISON OF TEACHING METHODS

The Great Debate began with a criticism of the education system: schools are failing to provide the increasingly skilled and intelligent workforce required by industry as it becomes more technological. In fact, under capitalism, which divides management from labour, advancing technology concentrates intelligence on the side of management and de‐skills labour. The combination of expanding education with contracting skill at work produces employees who are more, not less, educated than their jobs require, and who are less efficient because more dissatisfied. In this situation, the demand for a more educated workforce is in fact a demand for more discipline in the subordinate ranks of industry's political hierarchy. Education should accept the invitation to establish ‘closer links’ with industry, but must resist the cosmetic operation being planned.     

Rural young people’s work/study priorities and aspirations: The influence of family social capital

The transition from school to secure work has become more difficult as young people bear the brunt of the restructuring of the Australian labour market. Young people raised in a rural community are over-represented in the most disadvantaged labour market group- those who have not participated in post-school training and who have experienced long periods of unemployment. Rural labour markets feature lower paid, less secure jobs than their urban counterparts. Education is a proven way of accessing the ‘better’ jobs offered by national labour markets. Why then do young people from disadvantaged rural areas not take up education and training opportunities to the same extent as their urban counterparts? The research discussed in this paper investigated ways in which family and school/community social capital influence young people’s work/study values and priorities with regard to post-school pathways. Family networks and information that are limited and concentrated in rural areas tend to be associated with a desire to find a job before completing school, preferably located near to home. Incomplete understanding and lack of trust of educational institutions and labour markets in urban centres based on local experience may be transmitted through advice of family and friends and influence young people toward current work rather than the longer term goal of post-compulsory education. The implications for regional and national programs of educational and community development are discussed.     

Diverse Expectations and Access to Opportunities: is there a Graduate Labour Market?

Restructuring of the labour market has led to changing demand for skills and concern about potential mismatch between needs of employers and competences developed in higher education courses. This paper extends analysis of the Great Expectations survey of UK final-year undergraduates in 1996 to explore the development of skills and competences in different disciplinary areas and the anticipated career trajectories of students. A detailed assessment is undertaken of the extent to which respondents appear prepared, both in terms of the employment-related skills they consider they have developed as undergraduates and in their expectations, for the changes which have taken place in the labour market in the latter part of the twentieth century. While findings from transitional early careers need to be interpreted cautiously, it does appear that expectations varied less than emerging outcomes for this cohort in the vanguard of mass higher education. Subject and gender differences in expectations and outcomes were significant and 'non-traditional' graduates were more likely than others to report that they were experiencing difficulties in the transition from education to employment. The graduates themselves had a flexible approach to the labour market but it seems that employers may have more inflexible recruitment graduate practices. Further research is required but there is clearly a danger that wider access may not lead to correspondingly wider career opportunities.     

Learning to adapt: does returning to education improve labour market outcomes?

The transition into a post-industrial economy changed the nature of the Australian labour market extinguishing jobs in traditional industries and creating jobs in new industries. Workers displaced from the manufacturing sector and women seeking to re-enter the labour market after taking time out for family reasons need to retrain in order to secure full-time employment in new industries. Consequently, returning to education is a relatively common occurrence in Australia as adults adapt to the changing demands of the labour market. Using the first 12 waves of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia data, this paper examines the characteristics of those who return to education and gain new educational qualifications. The effect of upgrading educational qualifications on employment outcomes is also examined. The results show that those with higher levels of education were more likely than those with low levels of education to complete new qualifications after the age of 25 and that employment outcomes vary according to level of qualification completed.     

The expansion of higher education,employment and over-education in China

The article considers the current situation in the labour market for higher education graduates in China, showing what kinds of graduates have an advantage when facing potential employers. Secondly, it discusses the tendency of supply and demand between higher education graduates and the labour market from the perspectives of employment probability and over-education. Finally, the article suggests what should happen in the Chinese higher education system if it is to achieve a more effective relationship with the labour market.     

Equality of opportunities in Spanish higher education

In the past few decades, there has been a sharp increase in the number of students attending higher education institutions in Spain. Many commentators believe that this expansion is associated with greater equality of opportunities as more university places offer greater potential for the advancement of students from poorer backgrounds. Unfortunately, this argument is not always true. In fact, there is empirical evidence that the expansion in higher education system disproportionately benefits children from relatively rich and well educated families. In that context, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the possible effects of socioeconomic background on the decision to complete a degree before leaving the educational system in Spain. Taking the data from the Spanish module data on school to work transitions, I estimate several logit models in order to detect the influence of personal and regional characteristics on the educational decisions. The results show that, in spite of the disappearance of universities for only the elite, socioeconomic variables heavily influence the demand for university education, so the equality of opportunities in this educational level has not been completely achieved.

A Comparative Analysis of Graduate Employment Prospects in European Labour Markets: A Study of Graduate Recruitment in Four Countries

The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of higher education and the graduate labour markets in selected European countries (France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) in the context of the expectations of graduates and prospective employers, and respective recruitment and selection practices. Expectations of graduating students from a number of European collaborating universities are sought and analysed in order to find out about a match between the knowledge and skills of graduates and the needs of European employers. The study examines the process of graduate recruitment, employee and employer expectations, and the role of higher education institutions in meeting such expectations. Primary data was gathered from 252 employers and 485 final year (graduating) students through the use of questionnaires. The analysis of the data collected has revealed different approaches to but similar methods of graduate recruitment between the four countries. Despite the current differences in higher education systems and labour market trends, the expectations of employers and graduating students are more similar than different. It is concluded that EU graduates will have good employment prospects in an integrated labour market.     

Risk of mother-reported child abuse in the first 3 years of life

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this research was to investigate, within an at-risk population, parent and child characteristics associated with a mother's self-reports of severe physical assault and assault on the self-esteem of the child in the first 3 years of life. DESIGN: The study population consisted of a community-based sample of mothers of newborns identified as at-risk for child maltreatment (n=595). Families were assessed annually from the child's birth through age 3 using instruments with established psychometric properties. Independent variables investigated included: family socio-demographics, parity, mother's social support, maternal depression, maternal problem drug or alcohol use, partner violence, child's age, child's sex, low birth weight/small for gestational age (SGA), and mother's perception of child's demand level. Associations with maltreatment were examined using multivariable methods for longitudinal data. RESULTS: Child severe physical assault was significantly associated with parent characteristics (maternal depression and partner violence); and child characteristics (SGA). Assault to the child's self-esteem was significantly associated with maternal depression, maternal illicit drug use, partner violence and mother's perception of child's demand level. Controlling for family sociodemographic characteristics did not change the associations. Likewise, while mother's perception of child demand level had an independent association with self-esteem assault, the associations described above persisted while demand level was held constant. In this high-risk sample, abuse was not associated with mother's age, education, race, parity, or household income level. CONCLUSIONS: While characteristics such as SGA can serve as markers for increased abuse risk, they are not amenable to intervention after the child is born. However, certain other risk factors, such as maternal depression and domestic violence are malleable and should be targeted for intervention with the goal of preventing child maltreatment.     

No experience,no employment: The effect of vocational education and training work experience on labour market outcomes after higher education

Higher education graduates with work experience enter the labour market more smoothly. This study analyses how work experience from vocational education and training (VET) affects labour market outcomes after higher education. To account for selection into VET, we use the regional enrolment rate as an instrument for upper-secondary VET. Results suggest that work experience gained during VET leads to significantly higher wages of 7% to 19% one year after graduation from higher education and two months less search time for first employment but does not significantly lower the probability of an internship in the post-graduation year. However, these positive effects do not persist: the effect is no longer robustly significant for wages, unemployment or employment position after five years. The effect operates through the human capital (specific and general), screening and signalling channels, not the social network channel. Our results suggest that upper-secondary VET is an equivalent pathway to academic education, not merely the second-best, for individuals planning on higher education.     

当前我国劳动力价值的界定及其实现

劳动力价值的内容应包括维持劳动力占有者及其家庭生存所必不可少的生活资料的价值以及劳动力占有者接受教育和训练所耗费的费用;劳动力价值受纯生理因素、历史和道德因素以及市场供求因素的制约。在我国,合理界定劳动力价值,提升劳动力价格有利于经济持续健康发展,有利于维护社会的和谐与稳定。     

中国高等教育需求中的城乡差异-人力资本与社会资本理论的视角

本文应用人力资本和社会资本理论,探讨了中国高等教育需求中的城乡差异。研究表明:在控制其他因素以后,城乡高中生对高等教育有着同样强烈的需求,但学生的城乡背景与影响高等教育需求的人力资本和社会资本因素之间存在交互作用:(1)当高等教育预期收益率较低时,农村学生比城市学生更希望接受高等教育;当高等教育预期收益率较高时,城市学生比农村学生更希望接受高等教育。(2)当家庭网络资源较少时,农村学生比城市学生更希望接受高等教育;当家庭网络资源较多时,城市学生比农村学生更希望接受高等教育。农村低社会经济地位的学生对高等教育的旺盛需求表明,接受高等教育几乎是他们改变其不利社会地位、实现流动的惟一渠道。扩大农村学生的高等教育机会,是改善城乡差异的重要手段。政府应该在教育财政和招生等方面进行制度创新以回应此类教育需求。     

我国教育适应劳动力市场问题初探

主要探讨我国教育不适应劳动力市场需求的问题。从教育和劳动力市场两个方面探讨了问题产生的原因，并提出了一些对策思路。