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Higher Education and the Employability Agenda

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The Palgrave International Handbook of Higher Education Policy and Governance

Abstract

The term ‘employability’ is part of mainstream discourse about expected outcomes for higher education. The increased stress on the employability of their graduates has challenged colleges and universities to evaluate and prioritize the fit between education and training and the workplace. In this chapter, we explore how employability has influenced higher education policies and practices globally. We first review the definition for employability and discuss the related theoretical framework of human capital. We next examine employability of college graduates as an objective of the economic strategies of supranational, regional and national organizations. We then consider the knowledge, skills and attitudes that make a graduate in the 21st century employable and conclude with a review of how higher education institutions have responded to what is commonly referred to as the ‘employability agenda’.

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Authors
  1. Cheryl A. Matherly
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  2. Martin J. Tillman
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ghent University, Belgium

    Jeroen Huisman

  2. University of Twente, the Netherlands

    Harry de Boer

  3. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

    David D. Dill

  4. Cardiff University, UK

    Manuel Souto-Otero

Copyright information

© 2015 Cheryl A. Matherly and Martin J. Tillman

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Matherly, C.A., Tillman, M.J. (2015). Higher Education and the Employability Agenda. In: Huisman, J., de Boer, H., Dill, D.D., Souto-Otero, M. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Higher Education Policy and Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-45617-5_16

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