Employability of German Geography Graduates: The Mismatch between Knowledge Acquired and Competences Required

Abstract

The employability of university graduates is a concern in higher education as labour markets change more and more rapidly. This is of particular relevance for multi-faceted subjects such as geography. Studies on employability have to consider to what degree a university education helps graduates start a career. The results of a survey of 257 geography graduates of JLU (Justus Liebig University) Giessen, Germany, indicate that the traditional curricula did not necessarily prepare German geographers adequately for their jobs. The graduates possess more knowledge than required but lack important competences and transferable skills that the job market demands. This may be partly remedied by the introduction of project-oriented classes.

Keywords:

• Employability
• education mismatch
• higher education
• knowledge
• competences
• problem-based learning

Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to James F. Petersen of Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, for his valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper and Christian Diller and Jürg Luterbacher for the example of a current project module. They also thank five anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments that eventually brought significant improvements to this paper. They very much appreciate the financial support by JLU Giessen for carrying out the alumni survey.

Notes

¹ http://www.uni-kassel.de/wz1/absolvent/, accessed 28 May 2009 (in German).

² Also proposed by the interdisciplinary workgroup on the study of higher education and job-markets in Germany led by the members of INCHER, University of Kassel, Germany.