Strategies of action: improving employability
- Autores: Barbara Merrill
- Localización: Revista Fuentes, ISSN-e 2172-7775, ISSN 1575-7072, Vol. 16, 2015, págs. 15-36
- Idioma: español
- Enlaces
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Resumen
Higher education institutions across Europe are transforming, albeit reluctantly in some cases, as a result of changing state/university relationships, economic and social changes, internationalisation and globalisation. Increasingly they have been subject to the influences of marketisation and neo-liberalism. Externally universities are also now engaging with other sites of knowledge producers while internally new and diverse student groups are entering (Scott, 2005). Traditional universities are also under pressure to break down the ivory tower image and engage in partnerships with employers and local communities to the extent that according to Barnett: �Institutional boundaries become less tight as interrelationships with the wider society grow� (Barnett, 2003: 27). While some systems remain elite the system as a whole has become a mass-based one (Scott, 2001, Osborne, 2003) opening up opportunities for widening participation and access for groups who never previously entered higher education. As a result the student population has become more diverse by age, class, gender, ethnicity and disability. Higher education, therefore, has an important role to play in providing lifelong learning opportunities, including within this employability skills for the labour market.
