“Bachelors and Employability”

“Bachelors and Employability” Presentation for BeSt3 “The Job and Education Fair”, Vienna, Friday, March 2, 2007 David F. J. Campbell david.campbell@uni-klu.ac.at http://www.iff.ac.at/hofo

Bachelors and Employability 2007/01 • What is employability? • One answer: the ability (degree of ability) of graduates to find jobs after completion of their studies. • Implication #1: Employability becomes a liability and responsibility of HEIs. • Implication #2: Employability may serve as a benchmark and as key performance indicators for HEIs.

Bachelors and Employability 2007/02 • Objectives for Bachelors (“BAs”) and “employability” are: • BA graduates should receive a “knowledge” that can be applied and thus transformed into a practical occupation context. • BA students should be able to finish their BA studies in a pre-defined time frame.

Bachelors and Employability 2007/03 • What is knowledge? Ramifications are: • Integration of knowledge creation/production, diffusion and use; • In epistemic terms: “Mode 1” and “Mode 2”; • Societies and economies are increasingly knowledge-based; • The importance of “innovation”.

Bachelors and Employability 2007/04:What is knowledge?

Bachelors and Employability 2007/09:Challenges for the employability of BAs • The Bachelors as a “short-term” degree versus the expectation that, as a consequence of LLL (“life-long learning”), the demand on the individual to extend the number of accomplished academic degrees will expand; • “BA” degrees must be seen as “individual components” of a more comprehensive education and degree system;

Bachelors and Employability 2007/10:Challenges for the employability of BAs • The Bachelors must integrate: (specialized) knowledge, social skills, personality; • Practical knowledge (internships/“Praktika”) will gain crucially in importance for the BA; • The disciplinary tracks of the BA degrees will equal the disciplinary logic of the previous system versus the disciplinary basket will be reshuffled;

Bachelors and Employability 2007/11:Challenges for the employability of BAs • BAs: “Comprehensive scope” and/or “focused scope”; • BAs: “Academic orientation” and/or “professional orientation; • BAs: “Full-time” and/or “part-time” (in parallel to an occupation) studies;

Bachelors and Employability 2007/12:Challenges for the employability of BAs • BAs: Language of teaching in the national language (German) and/or in English; • BAs: Recognition of work experience for certain BA modules or not; • BAs: “Horizontal mobility” – the ability of adding additional studies and degrees in an “interdisciplinary mode” after completion of a BA’s degree.

Bachelors and Employability 2007/13:Hypothetical typology & virtual % distribution of BAs and MAs • In the following, as working hypotheses for a further debate, a (micro) typology of different profiles of BA and MA degrees and of their (“virtual”) percentage distribution of frequency – in the future – are being presented.

Bachelors and Employability 2007/14:Hypothetical typology & virtual % distribution of BAs and MAs

“Bachelors and Employability”