Employability skills development: Are Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) responsible?

                                                                     ABSTRACT

Today’s challenging world means that it is no longer sufficient for a new graduate to have knowledge of an academic subject; more and more it is crucial for the 21^st century learners to gain the skills, which could be developed within one situation (in our case in higher education institutions) and then they can transform these necessary skills in another situations, like employment or future life. Charles, Bernie and Maya (2015) indicate that the system of education does not adequately prepare learners to succeed in today’s or tomorrow’s world. One of the reasons is that, the world continues to transform dramatically, while education is not adapting quickly to meet all the demands these transformations are bringing. Hence, nowadays, we are expecting HEIs to include employability skills more fully into the curriculum and provide various teaching and learning opportunities for the learners to acquire the skills. Since employability skills (transferable skills, generic skills, core skills, life skills, the 21^st century skills or key skills, as they are labelled in various ways by different authors) are essential for effective performance not only in the workplace, but also in life, HEIs should promote the development of these general skills that are relevant to a broad range of disciplines. Consequently, this paper sheds light on the perception of educators in European context regarding the role of HEIs in promoting the development of the essential skills, as well as, it describes how this process could be encouraged in HEIs.

Key words:  employability skills, development, higher education institutions, teaching, learning process

See full article in IRCEELT Journal 2018.