While investment in HE may result in favourable outcomes for some graduates, this is clearly not the case across the board. In addition, the human development theory and the human capital theory come to the forefront whenever employability is considered. The evidence suggests that some graduates assume the status of knowledge workers more than others, as reflected in the differential range of outcomes and opportunities they experience. Reducing the system/structure down to the graduate labour market, there are parallels between Archer's work and consensus theory (Brown et al. and David, M. (2006) Degree of Choice: Class, Gender and Race in Higher Education, Stoke: Trentham Books. conventional / consensus perspective that places . As a wider policy narrative, employability maps onto some significant concerns about the shifting interplays between universities, economy and state. In sociological debates, consensus theory has been seen as in opposition to conflict theory. The extent to which future work forms a significant part of their future life goals is likely to determine how they approach the labour market, as well as their own future employability. (2007) Does higher education matter? consensus and industrial peace. In a similar vein, Greenbank (2007) also reported concerns among working-class graduates of perceived deficiencies in the cultural and social capital needed to access specific types of jobs. It appears that students and graduates reflect upon their relationship with the labour market and what they might need to achieve their goals. . Employability skills include the soft skills that allow you to work well with others, apply knowledge to solve problems, and to fit into any work environment. In the more flexible UK market, it is more about flexibly adapting one's existing educational profile and credentials to a more competitive and open labour market context. 2003) and attempts to seek integrate them by formulating a model of explanatory form together with the existing empirical literature. While consensus theory emphasizes cooperation and shared values, conflict theory emphasizes power dynamics and ongoing struggles for social change. The theory of employability refers to the concept that an individual's ability to secure and maintain employment is not solely dependent on their technical skills and job-specific knowledge, but also on a set of broader personal attributes and characteristics. The problem of graduate employability and skills may not so much centre on deficits on the part of graduates, but a graduate over-supply that employers find challenging to manage. Graduates appear to be valued on a range of broad skills, dispositions and performance-based activities that can be culturally mediated, both in the recruitment process and through the specific contexts of their early working lives. Conversely, traditional middle-class graduates are more able to add value to their credentials and more adept at exploiting their pre-existing levels of cultural capital, social contacts and connections (Ball, 2003; Power and Whitty, 2006). Such issues may be compounded by a policy climate of heavy central planning and target-setting around the coordination of skills-based education and training. Despite the limitations, the model is adopted to evaluate the role of education stakeholders in the Nigerian HE. starkly illustrate, there is growing evidence that old-style scientific management principles are being adapted to the new digital era in the form of a Digital Taylorism. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative, Over 10 million scientific documents at your fingertips, Not logged in The most discernable changes in HE have been its gradual massification over the past three decades and, in more recent times, the move towards greater individual expenditure towards HE in the form of student fees. The traditional human and cultural capital that employers have always demanded now constitutes only part of graduates employability narratives. 6 0 obj Becker, G. (1993) Human Capital: Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education (3rd edn), Chicago: Chicago University Press. They construct their individual employability in a relative and subjective manner. Perhaps increasingly central to the changing dynamic between HE and the labour market has been the issue of graduate employability. Using Bourdieusian concepts of capital and field to outline the changing dynamic between HE and the labour market, Kupfer (2011) highlights the continued preponderance of structural and cultural inequalities through the existence of layered HE and labour market structures, operating in differentiated fields of power and resources. Graduate employability is clearly a problem that goes far wider than formal participation in HE, and is heavily bound up in the coordination, regulation and management of graduate employment through the course of graduate working lives. The more recent policy in the United Kingdom towards raising fee levels has coincided with an economic downturn, generating concerns over the value and returns of a university degree. Morley (2001) however states that employability . consensus theory of employability. Bowers-Brown, T. and Harvey, L. (2004) Are there too many graduates in the UK? Industry and Higher Education 18 (4): 243254. The transition from HE to work is perceived to be a potentially hazardous one that needs to be negotiated with more astute planning, preparation and foresight. Smetherham, C. (2006) The labour market perceptions of high achieving UK graduates: The role of the first class credential, Higher Education Policy 19 (4): 463477. Ideally, graduates would be able to possess both the hard currencies in the form of traditional academic qualifications together with soft currencies in the form of cultural and interpersonal qualities. Career choices tend to be made within specific action frames, or what they refer to as horizons for actions. (2010) Education and the employability of graduates: Will Bologna make a difference? European Educational Research Journal 9 (1): 3244. Harvey, L. (2000) New realities: The relationship between higher education and employment, Tertiary Education and Management 6 (1): 317. At the same time, the seeming consensus regarding employability as an outcome with reference to employment or employment rates belies the complexity that surrounds the concept in the wider literature. Tomlinson, M. (2007) Graduate employability and student attitudes and orientations to the labour market, Journal of Education and Work 20 (4): 285304. The label consensus theory of truth is currently attached to a number of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives. [PDF] Graduate Employability Skills: Differences between the Private and 02 May 2015 Education is vital in the knowledge economy as the commodity of . The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology of Education, London: Routledge, pp. The differentiated and heterogeneous labour market that graduates enter means that there is likely to be little uniformity in the way students constructs employability, notionally and personally. Consensus theories posit that laws are created using group rational to determine what behaviors are deviant and/or criminal to protect society from harm. These theorists believe that the society and its equilibrium are based on the consensus or agreement of people. Dearing, R. (1997) The Dearing Report: Report for the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education: Higher Education in the Learning Society, London: HMSO. The employability and labour market returns of graduates also appears to have a strong international dimension to it, given that different national economies regulate the relationship between HE and labour market entry differently (Teichler, 2007). (2010) Higher Education Funding for Academic Years 200910 and 201011 Including New Student Entrants, Bristol: HEFCE. Slider with three articles shown per slide. Knight, P. and Yorke, M. (2004) Learning, Curriculum and Employability in Higher Education, London: Routledge Falmer. The expansion of HE, and the creation of new forms of HEIs and degree provision, has resulted in a more heterogeneous mix of graduates leaving universities (Scott, 2005). This is then linked to research that has examined the way in which students and graduates are managing the transition into the labour market. This review has highlighted how this shifting dynamic has reshaped the nature of graduates transitions into the labour market, as well as the ways in which they begin to make sense of and align themselves towards future labour market demands. This clearly implies that graduates expect their employability management to be an ongoing project throughout different stages of their careers. Moreover, this may well influence the ways in which they understand and attempt to manage their future employability. Further research has also pointed to experiences of graduate underemployment (Mason, 2002; Chevalier and Lindley, 2009).This research has revealed that a growing proportion of graduates are undertaking forms of employment that are not commensurate to their level of education and skills. As Little and Archer (2010) argue, the relative looseness in the relationship between HE and the labour market has traditionally not presented problems for either graduates or employers, particularly in more flexible economies such as the United Kingdom. What has perhaps been characteristic of more recent policy discourses has been the strong emphasis on harnessing HE's activities to meet changing economic demands. This contrasts with more flexible liberal economies such as the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, characterised by more intensive competition, deregulation and lower employment tenure. For other students, careers were far more tangential to their personal goals and lifestyles, and were not something they were prepared to make strong levels of personal and emotional investment towards. Yet at a time when stakes within the labour market have risen, graduates are likely to demand that this link becomes a more tangible one. Savage, M. (2003) A new class paradigm? British Journal of Sociology of Education 24 (4): 535541. In such labour market contexts, HE regulates more clearly graduates access to particular occupations. Perhaps one consensus uniting discussion on the effects of labour market change is that the new knowledge-based economy entails significant challenges for individuals, including those who are well educated. Article Purpose. 1.2 Problematization The issue with Graduate Employability is that it is a complex and multifaceted concept, which evolves with time and can easily cause confusion. Taylor, J. and Pick, D. (2008) The work orientations of Australian university students, Journal of Education and Work 21 (5): 405421. Moreover, this is likely to shape their orientations towards the labour market, potentially affecting their overall trajectories and outcomes. Moreover, there is evidence of national variations between graduates from different countries, contingent on the modes of capitalism within different countries. High Educ Policy 25, 407431 (2012). Brown, P. and Hesketh, A.J. Furthermore, this relationship was marked by a relatively stable flow of highly qualified young people into well-paid and rewarding employment. (2009) Over-education and the skills of UK graduates, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 172 (2): 307337. HE systems across the globe are evolving in conjunction with wider structural transformations in advanced, post-industrial capitalism (Brown and Lauder, 2009). The theory rests on the assumption that Conservative governments in this time period made an accommodation with the social democratic policy . A further policy response towards graduate employability has been around the enhancement of graduates skills, following the influential Dearing Report (1997). The theory of post war consensus has been used by political historians and political scientists to explain and understand British political developments in the era between 1945 and 1979. Green, F. and Zhu, Y. Policymakers continue to emphasise the importance of employability skills in order for graduates to be fully equipped in meeting the challenges of an increasingly flexible labour market (DIUS, 2008). Structural functionalists believe that society tends towards equilibrium and social order. Future research directions on graduate employability will need to explore the way in which graduates employability and career progression is managed both by graduates and employers during the early stages of their careers. It also introduces 'positional conflict theory' as a way of (2010) Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education (The Browne Review), London: HMSO. - 91.200.32.231. Arthur, M. and Sullivan, S.E. (1972) Graduates: The Sociology of an Elite, London: Methuen. Both policymakers and employers have looked to exert a stronger influence on the HE agenda, particularly around its formal provisions, in order to ensure that graduates leaving HE are fit-for-purpose (Teichler, 1999, 2007; Harvey, 2000). 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