EURASHE - Roundtable on Employability Birgit Hanny, M.A., M.B.A. 2013-02-07, Brussels

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ASIIN: who we are and what we do

• Not-for-profit organization (1999)

• Cooperation between HEIs, professional societies and industry

• Expertise of around 1400 peers and 190 committee members

• Programme accreditation / certification: ca. 3000 study programmes, national seals and international field specific labels

• System accreditation / institutional certification: national seal and international ASIIN-label

ASIIN e.V.

• 100% affiliate of ASIIN e. V.

• Founded to complete portfolio and to avoid conflict of interests

• ASIIN certificate for modules and courses in continuous education

• Trainings & workshops

• Evaluations

• Consulting for organisation development

• Process management third party seals

• Process management professional cards

ASIIN Consult

• International / European projects: capacity building, field specific qualification frameworks, learning outcomes / competence profiles

Certification

Academy

Quality Development

An ASIIN-procedure on the programme / course / module level may lead to different seals

Engineering

National German (public, generic)

Informatics Chemistry

ASIIN: „our“ seals and labels

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Engineerin, Natural Sciences, Informatics (Economics)

Founding Members of ASIIN e.V.: they expect „employability“

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An alliance anchoring in the

scientific community and in the

economy (universities, professional

organizations, scientific societies,

chambers, trade unions,

employers’ federations) working

together for quality assurance and improvement in higher education

Employer’s

Federations, Trade

Unions , Industry

Associations

Technical and

Scientific

Associations,

Professional

Organizations,

Chambers

Coordination

Group

of Universities

of Applied

Sciences

Coordination

Group of

Technical

Universities

Respective deans’ conferences as

“guests”

Respective deans’ conferences as

“guests”

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ASIIN-philosophy: learner centred and process approach focusing on outcome

Educational Objectives

learning outcomes / competence

profile

job / career profiles

Input of HEI

support processes / framework conditions

e.g. student services,

staff resources,

infrastructure,

programme structure,

curriculum,

didactic concept

Outcome

correspondence of educational

objectives and learning outcomes

results of outcomes assessment and internal/external

evaluation

Assessment of the process: coherence of goals, input + outcomes

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Definitions for the learner centred approach

Based on the European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning, ASIIN uses the following definitions:

• Qualification means the formal result of an evaluation and validation process in which a competent body has found that a given person's learning outcomes are in line with the required standards.

• Learning outcomes are definitions of what students know, understand and are able to do after completing a learning process. They are defined as knowledge, skills and competences.

• Knowledge is the result of the processing of information by learning/studying (theory and/or factual knowledge).

• Skills are the ability to apply knowledge in order to carry out given tasks and solve problems (cognitive skills such as logical, intuitional and creative thinking as well as practical skills such as skillfulness and the use of methods, materials, tools and instruments).

Competence is the ability to use knowledge, skills and personal, social and/or systematic abilities in a working or learning environment as well as for one's own professional and/or personal development.

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Concept: LO-approach and „employability“

• What Knowledge is needed for being “employable” in a certain field?

• What Skills are needed for being “employable” in a certain field?

• What Competences are needed for being “employable” in a certain field?

Pre-requisite: the pursued learning outcomes / competence profile reflects state of the art knowledge and skills in the scientific field as well as “real” competences combining personal growth and social skills with the subject specific contents and methods

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Concept: holistic view on „employability“

• “Employability” in higher (professional) education is the

product of the complete educational process

• The competence profile of the graduate with all its

elements (science, application, methods, personal

growth) leads to “employability” corresponding to the

higher education level

• “Employability” in this sense is not just enabling to

implement pre-defined solutions but to invent new

solutions in unknown environments

• The transferability of obtained learning outcomes

leads to “employability”

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Employability as part of standards

Two layer-structure of standards (criteria) in ASIIN’s programme

accreditation / certification approach

13 SSC = subject specific additional criteria

→ Catalogues of expected Learning

Outcomes > ideal profiles containing field specific competences relevant for

employability

General Criteria for the certification of study programmes

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Applicant HEIs must show their concept:

- typical labour market for a certain degree

- how demand from employers is reflected in curricula development

- expected LO > competence profile for a programme / module

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Employability and higher (professional) education

Content-dimension:

selection of curricular elements, didactical approach, contents >

curricular development

communication-dimension:

How (P)HEI get information about what outcomes are requested in

work life / the economy?

innovation-dimension:

Who thinks about what outcomes will be needed in the future more

than 10 years ahead – employers of today or academic world or both?

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Back to the questions 1

What is your definition/concept of Employability?

Could you name up to 3 crucial elements for Employability?

holistic learner centered approach: not single, isolated curricular or didactic measures but integration in expected and obtained learning outcomes / competence profiles of graduates

watch the

- content-dimension (curricular development base on state of the art learning outcomes)

- communication-dimension (systematic communication paths between economic and academic world)

- innovation-dimension (employability in higher (professional) education is not just “production on demand”

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Back to the questions 2

Could you link your understanding of Employability to specifics of Professional Higher Education (PHE)? Are there any specific approaches in comparison to the overall higher education?

How would you recommend us to measure Employability? Through which actions would you raise Employability of PHE graduates in practice?

Professional higher education follows the same patterns and approaches, the difference to higher education in general lays in specific profile and cut but always pursuing the equivalent academic level (e.g. more application oriented versus fundamental research oriented)

To measure employability is to measure learning outcomes > directly during education process and indirectly with feedbacks from the labour market (alumni, employers)

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Thank you!