Employability

The rise of Asian higher education has coincided with increasing graduate un- and under-employment in several nations, calling the value of degrees into question and threatening national stability. But is the problem underprepared students or dysfunctional politics and economies? Helen Packer reports

English higher education is already very diverse. Aggressive top-down attempts to diversify it further will do more harm than good, says B.V.E. Hyde

Indian Institute of Science director discusses opening a new medical school and receiving the country’s largest philanthropic university gift

Persistent earning gaps by gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background are unfair to individuals and a drag on the economy, says Omar Khan

A ‘jobbified’ university teaching ‘transferable skills’ and marketable degrees neglects so much that is crucial to vocational formation, says Chris Higgins

Students’ aspirations to succeed in the high-tech job market are reshaping Indian higher education, says Eldho Mathews

Lack of management nous leaves legal profession vulnerable as human and technological shifts expose need for people skills

Chinese leader calls for greater alignment of degree programmes with the country’s workplace needs

Embracing multiple measures of career ‘success’ can move us beyond tiresome debates and put students’ needs first, says Tom Coward

Knowledge is commodified by the prioritisation of economic imperatives over social and democratic goals in educational policymaking, says Zahid Naz

If slides substitute for note-taking, students will not develop vital skills. Let’s not underestimate their ability to develop them, says Tobiasz Trawiński

Most students want universities, first and foremost, to boost employability. Underplaying that purpose will only alienate them, says Samuel Abrams

Universities must address the deficit by offering training in public speaking to all undergraduates regardless of course, says Simon Hall 

By instilling a passion for innovation and interdisciplinary exploration, higher education can and must remain relevant, say Teruo Fujii and Joseph Aoun 

Financial strain shrinks risk appetite, but Kingston is teaching and assessing the skills employers crave as a core part of every subject, says Steven Spier

Singling out particular disciplines makes no sense, but we need cross-subject standards that are recognisable to employers, says Ian Pace

Ushering poorer students into short-term, non-degree programmes will suppress their wages and upward mobility, says Ben Wildavsky

Unless vocational and higher education systems are better aligned, Australians will struggle to met the challenges of the future, say five researchers

Removing ‘speed bumps’ and abolishing the ‘bamboo ceiling’ would help to overcome Australia’s ‘self-inflicted brain drain’, forum hears

Michael Fung, a former deputy chief executive of Singapore’s SkillsFuture programme, takes his methodology to Mexico and the developing world

While universities have their work cut out for them, skills forecasting agency says more graduates is not always the answer

The government would do much better to help educational institutions understand and prepare for future labour market shifts, says Rosalind Gill

Academics worry that more middle-class families will reconsider university as usefulness of degrees cast into doubt

The proportion of students who want their universities to ramp up networking opportunities has quintupled, Australasian survey finds

Once-largest US online university, embracing new public partner after Arkansas rejection, agrees its for-profit sector deserves scrutiny

Many university graduates choose to remain unemployed rather than take a job they do not consider commensurate with their degrees, says Pushkar

Case prompts renewed concern over plight of lecturers on temporary contracts

Rapid growth of country’s universities and inadequate teaching have short-changed students, according to scholars

Oversupply of poorly trained workers in some fields contrasts with undersupply in others. Universities and students need better information, says Pushkar

The UK’s trailblazing marriage of academic study and practical training is billed as a win-win for students and employers. But are universities and companies pulling their weight? Are students getting what they want? And what does it all mean for the future of traditional study, asks Tom Williams 

As AI makes giant strides, threatening to digitise a whole host of graduate careers, the need to ensure that human employees can regularly upskill and retrain is more urgent than ever. An early pioneer of mass lifelong learning, does Singapore point the way forwards? Pola Lem reports from the Lion City

To retain students, US institutions must give credit for learning that occurs in professional settings, say Stephen Handel and Eileen Strempel

Australian survey results consistently show that employers have more regard than graduates for the job-preparation attributes of degrees

Focus on jobs and commercialisation inconsistent with sector’s ‘intrinsic purposes’, says Simon Marginson

The honours system has too narrow a scope and too few grades. Why not embrace the Hear and the GCSE scale, asks Zahir Irani

Vocational institutions are winning the right to award PhDs, while professional doctorates are also expanding. But how compatible are academic and vocational focuses in research degree provision – and how easily can status disparities be overcome, asks Ben Upton

Lack of consensus over how to define economic worth of programmes to student and taxpayer hampers education department’s efforts

Seeing degrees solely as gateway qualification to the modern labour market ‘neither just nor efficient’, says government adviser on skills

More than half of those polled by Hepi and NUS express support for education designed with employment in mind

US institutions continue to dominate 2022 Global University Employability Ranking

Analysis links poor salary returns to students underestimating career potential of major choices – and universities not sharing earnings information

Corporate tie-ups bring employability benefits but may be fragile and impose academic and reputational risks, says Paul Springer

Students get an advantage if they are steeped not just in particular industries but in particular firms, says Nick Isles

‘Micromajors’ grow in popularity as number of university leavers hits 10 million annually

If the emphasis in the job market is on skills-based hiring, a college transcript ought to reflect that, says Darren Catalano

Vocational and higher education get equal billing, as Australian university groups unite in jobs-focused election spiel

Obsessed with graduate employment, US universities are doing little to improve students’ ability to think independently, a major new study has concluded. Paul Basken speaks to the Harvard academics behind the decade-long investigation and hears how student learning can be repaired

The National University of Singapore president says changing mindsets has been the most challenging aspect of overhauling approach to education

Our review won’t work until you ‘get on with’ the last one, former v-cs tell government

Both industry and academia in New Zealand need people who can look past traditional subject boundaries, says Catherine Whitby

Despite their above-average employability, engineering students are hampered by poor-quality provision, says Pushkar

Gavin Reddin’s long business career allows him to supplement academic models with myriad real-life exceptions to the rules

With contention about diversity adding to concerns about employability and declining student numbers, does Classics in the US need rebranding or rethinking? Paul Basken reports

Artificial intelligence will soon be able to research and write essays as well as humans can. So will genuine education be swept away by a tidal wave of cheating – or is AI just another technical aid that teaching and assessment will evolve to take account of? John Ross reports

Anglophone universities must embrace the skills and cultural understanding that learning foreign languages instils, says Vicky Lewis

Government, enterprise and education must contribute to a multi-pronged, long-term programme to boost social mobility, says Anulika Ajufo

Hiroshi Amano expresses concern about poor representation of postgraduate degree holders in corporations

‘Tinkering with an outmoded’ approach is not enough, Tan Eng Chye tells THE event

The Kickstart Scheme’s rules are hard to navigate, and its design fails to harness university careers services’ know-how, says Richard Mendez

Collaborative, technically enhanced experiential learning will prepare the continent’s vast young population for the digital future, says Laura Kakon