The role of Higher Education within the labour market: evidence from four skilled occupations Gerbrand Tholen SKOPE Department of Education University of Oxford ESRC Festival of Science 3 rd of November 2014 St. Anne’s College, Oxford
Introduction • Confusion over how to define the skills that graduates should acquire, what graduates each field of study should produce, how they should be taught and assessed • Higher Education itself has many aims and purposes! • Preparation and selection for the labour market remains nonetheless essential • What is the role of Higher Education in the current labour market?
Background • Two important debates in which HE and university graduates feature prominently centre around 1) economic competitiveness and 2) social mobility Economic Competitiveness - Knowledge-based economy - Growth in HE will benefit UK’s economic competitiveness -Graduates are strategic asset within global economic structure -Special role for STEM education
It’s a sign we just don’t get it that we are even debating whether to keep the 50 per cent target for 18 – 30-year-old participation; over the next 15 years the leading economies of the world are going to head for 60 per cent and we should too. The idea that other countries have enough students able to benefit from higher education, but we don’t, is just insulting. In truth, this needs to be the first plank of a serious economic growth strategy for the future David Milliband (2010) "Although the UK economy is returning to growth, we still face significant challenges to secure future prosperity. There is a persistent productivity gap with international competitors, which has widened since the 2008 recession . Raising the UK’s skill levels through education and training has the potential to improve our economic performance, with gains in productivity and higher value economic activity” UKCES 2014, p.8
Social mobility Higher Education driver of social mobility 1) Education delineates merit through the award of educational credentials 2) Education skills and knowledge successful futures Our vision is a highly educated society in which opportunity is more equal for children and young people no matter what their background or family circumstances. We will do this by raising standards of educational achievement and closing the achievement gap between rich and poor. Department for Education (2010) They are the gatekeepers of opportunity and the main pathway into careers in the professions. As the British economy becomes ever more knowledge-based and professionalised, the role universities play will assume greater importance. Who gets into university, and how they get on once they have left, will have a critical role in determining whether Britain’s sluggish rates of social mobility can be improved Alan Milburn (2012)
Assumptions Competitiveness debate: HE as the manufacturer of high skilled workers • HE is the provider of advanced skills needed and used in an increasingly complex economy • Increase of qualifications within the labour force serves a need as well as desire to keep the UK competitive internationally • Increase in HE qualification serves a market need not credentialism (increase in HE skills and knowledge within the labour force leads to product upgrade/innovation) Social mobility debate: Higher Education as the great equalizer • University related skills and knowledge provide access to the professional classes • Qualifications are badges of suitability for professional and managerial jobs • Credential closure is decreasing as access to credentials are increasingly based on merit ( e.g. performance) rather than ascribed status • Educational credentials are interpreted as signals of merit within recruitment as well as within graduate careers.
Is HE living up to these expectations? Role of universities in social change 1) Who gets higher education? (the access question) 2) What do they get ?(the curriculum question) 3) And where does it lead them? (the placement question) Brennan et al 2004, p.17
Key questions • Does Higher Education serve as a provider of skill for graduate occupations? • How and to what extent do HE qualifications serve as credentials within the graduate labour market? • What is the relationship between the curriculum and placement?
The study • Skills, Credentials and Jobs in the Graduate Labour Market: a Renewed Sociological Analysis (2012-2015) • Funded by the British Academy • Create a better understanding of the post-recession British graduate labour market • Based on four occupational case studies: 1. software engineers 2. press officers 3. financial analysts 4. laboratory-based scientists/technicians in biotech/pharmaceutical companies • Why these four?
The study • Semi structured interviews with workers (graduates and non- graduates), employers, HR managers/recruiters and Higher Education lecturers. • Wide range of sectors, companies, locations • Variety of ages, career stages • 25-28 interviews for each occupation • Exploring (among other issues): - How and where graduates obtain their skills; -How the competition to enter the occupation is organised; -What the role is of degrees and other credentials within the competition; -The employability strategies of those who enter the occupation; -The skills demanded by employers to access the occupation; -The effects of the influx of graduates into the labour market; -The skills and abilities that are utilized in the work process; and -How careers are developed and maintained within the occupation.
Software engineers • Background • Relatively new occupation • Writing code • Problem solving/analytical thinking- logic-communication
Provider of skills You don't need necessarily university degree to perform the job but it helps “if somebody’s not got a degree that wouldn’t necessarily stand in their way if they were really good at what they did.” “When it comes to computer science and computer technology, you have some people who are naturally gifted, who have a natural problem-solving mind when it comes to programming and coding and software design. You have people who have a natural ability in your so-called bedroom coders and people who’ve done it from a young age. Then you have the people who have tried to learn it through university, and it’s hit and miss, you have some good and some bad. “ Many software engineers are ambivalent about their formal education “So I can say that when I graduated, I almost knew nothing about how they work in a company.” “I think if I had been just put into a job I wouldn’t have wasted six years, because I think most of what I learned was on the job anyway. “ “ I think anything I learnt at university for that could have been done in perhaps three months. So you look at the three years work and you think well, I could have learnt all that in, you know, a three month course and gone straight in two years earlier kind of thing.”
Relationship between what is taught and what is needed to work is even in relevant courses uneven. This due to the specificity of the work So they were not getting into too much detail, they were just trying to give us a basis, and it was up to us to you know decide what we really want to do, where to go, what to follow, and it was up to us to elaborate more. (...) So it wasn’t that they were preparing us for the market ... actually the philosophy of the university was let’s say against tying the university too close to the companies. They wanted to keep the environment let’s say company free, and they wanted to give us just ... to give us the notion of things, and not the actual hands-on experience on some specific tools of some companies. (...) I was at a meeting a year or so ago with some universities discussing how they would be attracting students to their agile software development courses. And what they were discussing was fine, but it was clearly driven by marketing considerations rather than equipping these students for ‘the market’.
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