Accepting employability as a purpose of higher education? Academics’ perceptions and practices

ABSTRACT

This study explores Portuguese academics’ acceptance of employability as a purpose for higher education further to the Bologna reforms, focusing on their understandings of employability and their teaching practices. The data were gathered through focus groups in which participated around 70 academics from 3 disciplinary areas, belonging to different institutional types. Findings suggest that there are different degrees of acceptance of employability as a purpose for higher education, varying by discipline and type of institution. Irrespective of the differences in perceptions of employability, all academics engage in teaching practices associated to the development of employability, although with different ends in mind. While Computer Engineering and Management academics aim to train professionals fitting into specific employment, for Arts academics such teaching methods aim to introduce students to artistic practice. These findings warn against equating employability with crude indicators of employment and using it as a performance indicator.

KEYWORDS:

• Employability
• teaching and learning
• Bologna process
• higher education policy
• academics’ perceptions
• purpose of higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Cristina Sin http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6039-8194

Orlanda Tavares http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8750-2032

Alberto Amaral http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4263-3765

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) under the postdoctoral fellowship SFRH/BPD/85724/2012 and the project UID/CED/00757/2013.