Strategic institutional approaches to graduate employability: navigating meanings,measurements and what really matters

ABSTRACT

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 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 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, along with the definitional and measurement challenges, to identify, workable approaches. It suggests some actionable principles to enhance employability that address the tensions between the three employability aims.     

高职院校毕业生就业能力的培养

我国社会经济发展的多样化，对高等职业教育的培养模式和毕业生就业能力的培养提出了新的任务和要求。高职院校毕业生不仅应具备相应的职业岗位能力，更应具备个人可持续发展的能力。为此，要加强高职院校学生的能力培养，促进能力素质的可持续发展，培养其自主创业能力。     

高校毕业生就业难的成因与对策

高等教育持续扩招,高校招生规模和毕业生不断壮大。由于国家经济结构调整与优化、高校人才培养模式滞后、毕业生综合素质不高和用人制度的不合理原因等,高校毕业生就业难日益成为突出的社会问题。应当看到,高校毕业生就业难是社会进步中的一个发展问题,要通过强化政府及其职能部门的主体责任、提升自身综合素质与转变就业观念、创新和改革高校人才培养模式等途径,形成合力,共同促进高校毕业生就业。     

我国高校扩招对毕业生就业影响的实证分析

关于高等教育规模扩展与毕业生就业的关系,存在着工资竞争理论、工作分层理论和工作竞争理论等不同理论观点的分歧。依据1998和2003年的调查数据对我国高校扩招与毕业生就业关系所做的实证分析表明,不同理论在我国都有一定的适用性,各种理论之间具有一定的内在一致性。这表明了高等教育规模与毕业生就业之间关系的复杂性,同时也为我们有效解决高校毕业生的就业问题提供了多种不同的思路。     

大学生就业能力培养:英国经验及其启示

英国与我国一样存在较大的毕业生就业压力,而在大学生就业能力培养方面存在对就业能力的认识不一致、相关活动不是高校教育的主要目标等矛盾,近年来高校采取改革教学模式、为学生提供个性化帮助、帮助学生增加工作经验以及加强校企联系等多种措施,提高学生的就业能力,相关做法对我国具有一定的启示和借鉴意义。     

Educational development for responsible graduate students in the neoliberal university

In this article, we examine how our work in educational development, specifically in graduate student training, enacts the logic of neoliberalism in higher education in Canada. We approach this examination through a collaborative autoethnographic consideration of and reflection on our practices and experiences as educational developers, the design and delivery of a graduate student survey and our own experiences of and identification with ‘self-actualizing graduate students’. Further, we illustrate how neoliberalism shapes the work of teaching and learning centres resulting in offering programming, which compels graduate students to act in ways that can be read as responsible and capable of navigating an increasingly bleak academic labour market. Throughout the article we call attention to the ways in which our role as educational developers may either reinforce or disrupt neoliberal discourses. While we urge a critical approach, we also reflect on constraints to such criticism.     

Changing student expectations and graduate employment: Case studies from Xi��an, Shaanxi Province

This paper addresses the issue of students’ employment expectations, considered a key factor in alleviating graduate unemployment in China. This empirical investigation surveyed students at two higher education institutions in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, to analyze how expectations were changing. The results contrasted with earlier studies that reported unrealistically high expectations, discovering instead that most respondents were aware of the difficulties of finding work and were revising their expectations accordingly. The results also revealed important variations in attitude between higher vocational students and university undergraduates, and between urban and rural students. Overall, the paper contends that although students are becoming more realistic, the complexity of graduate unemployment will prevent this change in attitude from making a major improvement to the overall situation.     

研究生心理培养与教育

研究生不仅是国家自然科学、工程技术、社会和管理科学的学术骨干力量,而且是国家未来发展的重要推动力。我国研究生招生规模的不断扩大和数量的迅速增加给研究生教育带来了巨大的考验与挑战。在研究生的培养与教育中不断出现各种各样的问题,其中研究生的心理健康问题最为社会广泛关注。本文系统分析和总结了研究生的心理健康问题及其产生的原因,深入探讨了解决研究生的心理健康问题途径。     

加强和创新研究生德育工作的思索

随着我国社会主义市场经济体制的进一步完善和现代化战略目标的逐步实现,研究生教育迅速发展已是必然,研究生德育工作愈显重要.新的形势要求我们必须加强和创新研究生德育工作.要准确把握当前研究生德育工作的现状,明确加强和创新研究生德育工作的重要性和紧迫性,采取加强和创新研究生德育工作的具体措施.     

学科、课程、学位:美国关于高等教育专业研究生培养的争论及其启示

美国在高等教育研究生培养与研究方面有关学科性、课程设计与学位的争论表明 :(1 )高等教育研究作为一个学科尚不成熟。应用其他相对成熟学科的理论与方法 ,是提高高等教育研究水平与研究生培养学术质量的较好方式。(2 )高等教育研究生培养的一个主要任务是培养高等教育管理方面的实践人员 ,目前还缺少成熟的培养体系。美国大学正在采取各种试验性培养方式 ,使研究生培养更好地联系实际。 (3 )美国大学为高等教育研究生颁发学术性的Ph D和职业性的 Ed D两种学位 ,这种双轨制既有利于学术发展 ,也有利于培养实践者。     

英国研究生资助体系的形成、发展及启示

英国的研究生资助体系起源于一战期间的国家需要,最终形成于20世纪60年代,在组织和制度上依托于科研资助机构,保证了人才培养和科学研究的紧密结合。21世纪以来,英国逐渐提高了研究生资助标准,形成了公开竞争、整体拨款、研究账户、项目助学等多种资助方式,对我国研究生教育改革具有借鉴意义。     

基于就业视角——中外研究生教育取向探究

从就业视角探讨各国研究生教育在满足少数研究生从事基础理论研究,重点培养国家重要部门所需要的精英人才外,大多数都要转向适应本国社会经济、科技发展需要的应用型研究及开发的高层次人才培养发展趋势下,我国应借鉴国外研究生职业教育有益经验,并根据我国社会经济、科技发展的特色,从国家宏观需求和研究生培养单位适应高层次就业行业来培养应用型、复合型研究生高层次人才需要出发,探索了研究生教育今后的就业取向。     

Student-perceived organizational support and perceived employability in the marketing of higher education

In the current context, the need for marketing in institutions of higher education is undeniable. The specification of the student not merely as a ‘customer’ means that traditional marketing no longer has sufficient capacity to explain the behavior of the student body. In this study, a four-level relationship marketing model is tested to check the influence of perceived organizational support (POS) and perceived employability on identification with the institution and the perceived price-quality ratio and how these influence student satisfaction. In addition, the constructs prior to POS and perceived employability are identified, which are explicit enough to enable specific marketing actions to be carried out. As POS is a construct defined for the labor market, its use applied to relational marketing comes up as something innovative.

To this end, Likert scales have been designed and validated to measure these constructs. The results of this test show how the perception of organizational support depends on the relationship of the student body with the administration and management of the center. Likewise, the perception of employability depends on the perceived reputation and the perception of the promotion of employability. Furthermore, it is confirmed that satisfaction is positively related to identification and the perceived price-quality ratio, which in turn are positively related to organizational support and perceived employability.     

缓解大学生就业难问题的战略性对策研究

为缓解大学生就业的紧张局势,必须对社会和高等教育发展进行战略性调整。其包括选择以就业为中心的经济发展模式、合理规划高等教育的发展、提高高等教育质量,完善就业服务、缓解区域发展的极端不平衡、扩大高中阶段教育。     

市场营销专业从普通专科教育向高职教育转型的思考

市场营销专业是目前高职院校广为开设的专业,而专业建设是体现办学特色的重要方面。因此,从普通专科教育和成人专科教育转型为高等职业教育的院校的市场营销专业,应在认清其制约因素的基础上,扬长避短,有针对性地进行专业定位、构建专业特色、开展专业教学建设。     

There is nothing generic about graduate attributes: unpacking the scope of context

This paper sets out to examine the situated nature of graduate attributes through using activity systems theory to explore their contextual nature. It builds on earlier work into graduate attributes by examining the reasons behind the significant variation in their interpretation, thus providing an analysis of the contextual nature of teaching and the implications this has for research and policy. The paper examines the local and individual factors which have a significant influence on the ways in which graduate attributes are understood by teaching staff. Rather than describing graduate attributes as generic, this paper suggests that the teaching of graduate attributes is embedded in local meanings and highly situated and this needs to be acknowledged in higher education policymaking, curriculum design and teaching.     

论创业型大学研究生培养的定位

针对福州大学最近提出的创业型大学的发展战略,结合作者在研究生培养和管理中的一些经验,提出了一些创业型大学中研究生培养定位的建议．     

高职院校毕业生就业市场体系建设的构想

随着高等职业教育的快速发展,高职院校毕业生就业形势日趋严峻,构建和完善一个适应高职院校毕业生就业的市场体系势在必行。在分析开发和培育毕业生有形就业市场和无形就业市场利弊的基础上,提出高职院校毕业生就业市场体系建设的构想。     

Equity in education in Chile: The tensions between policy and practice

The article examines education policy in Chile after the return to democracy in 1990 from an equity perspective. Since then, policies have aimed for continuity, coherence and complementarity with the aim of furthering national development, promoting social mobility, and equitable access to quality education at all levels. However, Chile faces the challenge of implementing equity-oriented policies within the legal confines of an education system constructed under the neoliberal model which was introduced by the military government (1973–1990). This has resulted in tensions between policy and practice, which have constrained the role of the state in a highly marketised system in its efforts to distribute quality education more equitably.