EUA Survey Of Master Degrees In Europe - European University ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

9 EmployabilityAt their London summit in 2007, ministers called for closer HE-employer dialogue and promised tobring their public sector employment practices into line with Bologna. They also set up a workinggroup on employability and asked for report back in Leuven / Louvain-la-Neuve in 2009. Theworking group chose to focus on the Bachelor degree. How far does it help students secure andretain employment, take up self-employment, and navigate the labour market on a lifelong basis?How could employers come to accept Bachelor-level attainment as a valid qualification, in thosecountries in which no such qualification had previously existed?The Bologna three-cycle system cannot be said to be in place until this process is complete. In otherwords, until all 46 countries have evolved beyond the position in which the Master is the sole pointof initial entry into the market for high-skilled labour. Thereafter, the residual and multiple functionsof the second cycle – acquisition of high level competences and knowledge, research, innovationand knowledge transfer, access to doctorate, continuing personal and professional development –will be easier to map and to articulate on a pan-European basis. Meanwhile, the definition of theBologna Master awaits the full fleshing out of the Bologna Bachelor.Employability and the BachelorEmployer-awareness campaigns are already in train – like the ‘Welcome Bachelor’ ventures mountedjointly by business and HE sectors in Austria and Germany – but it will be some time before theyproduce measurable results. Universities Austria, the conference of rectors of public universities, haslaunched a project on the employability of BA and MA degree holders. It is due to report in 2010and will show how far perceptions and practice have changed.Thus far the Bachelor has only just begun to consolidate its position. In Flanders the bankingcommunity has recognised it as an appropriate qualification for certain grades of work, on whichin-service training can build, but beyond the financial services sector it is considered too soon totell. The small number of employers, with whom EUA conversed in other countries, had contrastingviews. In Spain some were in sympathy with the aims of Bologna and were happy to provide workplacements during both Bachelor and Master programmes. In Germany they preferred the 4-yearBachelor with a placement element, leaving the Master to be taken later on a part-time basis asCPD.In Austria and Poland, they were more likely to share the view of students: sceptical regardingthe Bachelor, uncertain of its academic merits and its value in the labour market. In Poland,government was said not to have the led the way with the reform of public sector recruitmentpractices. In Austria, there is a telling distinction between the pre-nominal Magister – regarded asa prestigious title – and the post-nominal BA. Was ba part of the surname? one employer asked.Austrian employers nevertheless valued student mobility, whether at Bachelor or at Master levels;it increased assertiveness and laid the basis for more specific project management skills. In theNetherlands, according to the CHEPS report already cited, the university Bachelor (as opposed tothe UAS Bachelor) is not perceived as a viable labour market entry qualification.Employability and the MasterMinisters have said that the dialogue with employers must intensify. In the Spanish private sectorand in Ireland employers have a role in curriculum development. In the German UAS sector they areconsulted on labour market analysis and provide work placements and guest lecturers. They mayalso have seats on formal course accreditation panels.56In Poland, employers evinced little knowledge of course content and of the Diploma Supplement.A similar view was reported in Sweden; attitudes there have begun to change, however, insofar as
employers now look for evidence of the ability to complete a course, an aptitude which the openlifelong nature of the Swedish system did not always foster.Clearly, there is scope for better communication between HEIs and employers. In a follow-up tothe EUA Joint Masters Project of 2004, Adina Timofei asked HEIs offering joint degrees whetherthey had sought any employer involvement at the curriculum design stage. Despite citing labourmarket relevance as one of the major motivations for developing their courses, 54% of respondentsreported no consultation and only 14% requested employer feedback.To some extent enterprises are unaware of the HE offer. The representative of a multinationalcorporation, speaking at the Luxembourg conference on employability in October 2008, pointed toa failure by universities to market the new degrees. In what do they consist? Have they been tailoredto employers’ needs? And if so, on the basis of what assumptions? Given this limited transparency,he welcomed the DS – to the point of anticipating that his company would soon refuse to considerjob applications which did not attach one.Dialogue and communication are likely to thrive as employers are persuaded that participation incurriculum development, quality assurance and governance is in their interests. In no institutionvisited by EUA was this participation wholly absent. But it requires a time commitment by bothsides; and this in turn is fostered by a shared culture built up over a period.From the point of view of the HEIs, such a culture consists of a mix of collaborative research, careersguidance systems with links to employers’ bodies, organisational receptivity to inter-disciplinaryinnovation, alumni tracking where privacy laws permit (this is not always the case, for example inGermany), mentoring facilities, and viable, monitored, credited and integrated work placements.It also requires internal agencies, located appropriately within the institutional infrastructure, capableof conducting a dialogue with employers, translating it into strategic thinking and mainstreamingit into action. The French LRU law cited earlier requires all universities to open careers adviceoffices, with responsibility for on-course work placements as well as for counselling in the longerperspective.In many HEIs, the relationship with business and industry burgeoned during the years of the COMETTand LEONARDO programmes. A conference hosted by DAAD in Bonn in 2007 demonstrated howurgent it is for this capacity to be revived, refined, and shared. Its detailed recommendations toHEIs, employers, governments and the European Commission pointed also to the wider societalcontext. HEI-employer dialogue has to be energised, it said, but not in camera. How to involveNGOs, consumer groups, the media and employees’ organisations in policy formulation and projectmanagement is a question that both parties must address. Since 2007, the European Commissionhas run a regular university-business forum to pursue the wide range of issues involved.The EUA site visits revealed substantial evidence of the sort of HEI engagement sought by the Bolognaworking group: commitment to regional, national and European labour markets; involvement ofsocial partners in institutional governance; participation by employers and professional bodies incurriculum development at Master level; enterprise education; work placement schemes; careerscounselling; alumni tracking; an emphasis on inter-personal and inter-cultural skills.According to REFLEX Project fieldwork in France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway and UK, the‘soft’ skills most valued by employers are communication, foreign language, project managementand entrepreneurial skills. These are likely to be fostered in the ethos of student-centred learning,favoured by Bologna. National governments can support developments in this area. The HigherEducation Funding Council for England [HEFCE] has made GBP 60m available for some 30 projects,co-funded by employers, in its Employer Engagement Projects.57
Page 1 and 2:
EUA PUBLICATIONS 2009SURVEY OFMASTE
Page 3:
EUA PUBLICATIONS 2009SURVEY OF MAST
Page 6 and 7:
ForewordProfessor Georg WincklerEUA
Page 8: Executive summaryThe Master after t
Page 11 and 12: List of acronymsAPECAP[E]LARENEAsso
Page 13 and 14: MethodologyThe Master project was c
Page 15 and 16: • Lifelong Master: used in some s
Page 17 and 18: 9. Programmes leading to a master d
Page 19 and 20: Eurydice and the Bologna Stocktakin
Page 22 and 23: 2The implementationof the second cy
Page 30 and 31: 3The notion of complianceand the pr
Page 36 and 37: 4The Bachelor - Master -Doctorate s
Page 42 and 43: 5The regulated professionson the ot
Page 44 and 45: 5The regulated professions• (ii)
Page 46 and 47: 6Lifelong learningAddressing the is
Page 48 and 49: 6Lifelong learningIn Austria and Fi
Page 50 and 51: 7Student centred learningwho apprec
Page 52 and 53: of subject content and learning out
Page 54 and 55: 8 Mobilityor paid employment as wel
Page 56 and 57: 8 MobilityMaster portfolio. The evi
Page 60 and 61: 9 EmployabilityBinary systems and t
Page 62 and 63: 9 Employabilityindustries, they are
Page 64 and 65: 10The Master marketThe intersection
Page 66 and 67: 10The Master marketGlobal economic
Page 68 and 69: 10The Master marketTable B: tuition
Page 70 and 71: 11ConclusionsThe second cycle not y
Page 72 and 73: 11Conclusions• the recognition of
Page 74 and 75: 11Conclusions35. The future of the
Page 76 and 77: BibliographyBone D, Internationalis
Page 78 and 79: BibliographyLoades R, The future of
Page 80 and 81: AnnexesAnnex A - on-line questionna
Page 83: www.concerto.beThe European Univers
show all

EUA Survey Of Master Degrees In Europe - European University ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?