Employability

What strikes some as a tedious chore prone to bias can transform lives and evoke enduring gratitude. Academics should embrace the opportunity to knit the plot of a person, says Douglas Dowland

Service for local companies grabs spotlight as potential aid to competitiveness

Entrepreneurship skills can benefit students and society, but many universities aren’t giving the area the attention it needs, experts tell Anna McKie

Encouraging students to start a business could do more harm than good, researchers say

The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Covid-19 have buried the idea that learning for learning’s sake is enough, says Nancy Gleason

The promise of the new lifelong learning loan allowance is undermined by the insistence on separate and impermeable tracks, says Tim Blackman

Trusting in the continuing power of prestige to open employers’ doors is a dangerous strategy, say Alejandro Caballero and Sean Gallagher

Pakistan’s labour shortages illustrate that well-rounded graduates also need to be properly prepared for specific industries, says Tahir Shah

Flexibility around degree provision is the only way to ensure that workforces are equipped for the future, says Liz Barnes

Encouraging pandemic-hit graduates to continue their studies will only delay problems unless universities embrace student employability, says Sabrina Wang

Life in the age of Covid does not lend itself readily to students internships, but there are alternatives, says Benjamin Tak Yuen Chan

New measures that provide insight into how universities build personal qualities of their graduates are needed, argue Doug Cole and Dino Willox

Practitioners have a lot to teach students, but the value of research training should not be dismissed lightly, says Sam Christie

The Purpose Coalition will bring together the skills and the jobs needed to create a fairer, greener UK, says Justine Greening

Universities’ ethics oblige them to pay their own interns, so why do they permit their students to work many months for free, asks Sam Scott

Latest edition of Global University Employability Ranking suggests systems with closest industry partnerships on skills are on the rise

English ministers advised to start looking at key features like partnership with employers rather than using German system as ‘trademark’

Absorbing troubled online institution, university pledges $225 million investment

Early results from annual graduate employability survey suggest wide variations in views among firms due to pandemic 

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to be gatekeeper for new university and college courses

Move to reject Obama policy seen costing 200,000 borrowers some $11 billion

England’s main skills challenge is not over-education but preparing workers for the emerging economy, says Tim Blackman 

Graduates’ common lack of deep understanding about how AI works is hindering industry take-up, says Min Wanli

A post-coronavirus recession could drive higher university enrolment and enhance human capital, says Nick Hillman

The namesake cities in the US and UK are both home to internationally renowned universities whose industry collaborations are proving highly successful. But while that is good news for national economies, where does it leave the locals priced out of their own neighbourhoods? Paul Basken and John Morgan report

The Middle East and North Africa have large youth populations and growing university participation. But with high unemployment, low female workplace participation and universities focused on STEM and the public sector, is all this human capital being wasted? Simon Baker reports 

Why is there so little concern about the catastrophic decline in part-time adult learners in England? asks John Butcher

Australian survey finds ‘strong relationship’ between graduates’ attributes and demands of their jobs

Capping the public contribution to degree costs means universities can’t move to address skills gaps, says David Lloyd

With student debt escalating and concerns persisting that college graduates are not job-ready, increasing numbers of companies are taking the training of their workers in-house. But where does that leave the higher education sector, asks Paul Basken 

Data from a worldwide survey of employers suggest universities that specialise, work with industry and cultivate digital literacy are gaining the most ground

Internship restriction ‘makes no sense’, says international education expert

Stronger ties between educators and companies will be essential if humans are to thrive in the fourth industrial revolution, says Adenekan Dedeke

A new humanities-based major focused on how global commerce, businesses and societies shape one another points the way forward, says Karen E. Spierling

OECD education adviser Dirk van Damme highlights disappointing maths and literacy scores of university leavers

International students want to know that they are studying in a country that can set them up for a successful career, says Seema Kennedy

Gender determines whether university study is in directionless students’ interests

Vocational training funding freefall to continue as governments bicker

Continuous retraining is widely seen as the answer to the coming job losses caused by automation and artificial intelligence. But are universities the best places to provide it? And are their courses, structures and funding systems optimised to do so? Anna McKie reports

If universities don’t assert their expertise, demands from ministers and industry will become ever more misguided, says Dawn Freshwater

Students from poorer regions who enter their local workforce after graduation should also be celebrated, says Sir David Bell

Provision of teacher residencies and mentoring by universities seen as key to long-term science improvement

Efforts to make college cheaper should not detract from attempts to improve the other side of the value-for-money equation, says Kevin Vanzant

UUK report urges government to promote ‘earn while you learn’ courses to meet student, parent and employer enthusiasm

Worries over economy and graduate employability prompt trial of ‘1+X’ model in 10 provinces

Report sheds light on international graduates’ motivations for staying on

The qualification is a valuable tool to recruit students to at-risk programmes that meet projected skills gaps, says the QAA’s Julie Mizon

Universities in most nations are now obliged to prioritise graduate career prospects, but how it should be approached depends on your view of the meaning of education. Academics need to think that through much more clearly, says Tom Cutterham

Immersing students in an entrepreneurial and innovative environment will allow them to thrive in an AI world, says Sethuraman Panchanathan

Australian report suggests that business economics, not workers’ survival, will drive lifelong learning boom

At last week’s Times Higher Education Teaching Excellence Summit at Western University in London, Ontario, Royal Bank of Canada president David McKay made the case for more students to spend time in the world of work. Here is an abridged version of his speech.

David McKay hopes AI might help universities select students with vital ‘soft skills’

Institutions urged to outline more clearly what undergraduates can expect of them

Schools take credit for majority of literacy and numeracy development

Falling UK graduate wages reflect not too many students but a flexible labour market’s post-crash adjustment, argues David Willetts

Ford administration is blind to incompatibility of statistical metrics and quality teaching, academics warn

The advent of datasets linking graduates’ income to their student records has fuelled calls for certain courses and universities to be excluded from public funding. But, ahead of England’s Augar review of post-18 education, the minister who commissioned the longitudinal education outcomes project, David Willetts, warns against such abuses of the data

Top bank chief and African college founder agree that campuses have limited role in building job skills

Dual-sector university grouping the latest to resuscitate plans for integrated post-school sector

University support for enterprise in local schools and communities has significantly decreased in the past six years, study shows