Employability has moved into focus recently, with a number of articles here and here, looking at the concept more critically. I’ll leave finding a definition to another day (maybe we should give it a crack at the PlaceNet conference in May – I’m declaring an interested here, as I’m the chair). What I repeated learn about the term is that it invariably invokes strong feelings – feelings of anxiety among professionals (who are supposed to ‘deliver’ the employability strategy of their institutions), frustration with an alleged lack of work place skills in young people (as bemoaned by employers – often in the face of little evidence), and a ranging from a decided ‘meh’ to outright resistance from students. I’ve repeatedly shared my thoughts about reductionist approaches which I think have a negative influence on academia, specifically outcomes based learning – and the obsession with simplifying what is a complex matter (the skills, attributes and attitudes influencing someone’s chances of securing employment, holding on to it – or developing their own business) into a set of numbers: 6-month destination and salary figures as exemplified in the KISS statistics. I’m not sure what I’m learning from this at the moment – perhaps its just a review of my past year trying to make sense of the developments in my field – besides that ‘employability’ as a concept needs to be scrutinised and analysed more thoroughly than I’ve done so before, and that institutional efforts are often just as uncoordinated as the approaches of those in need of learning about employability.
We always seem to discuss employability as if it were an independent life-form. I have strongly advocated a different perspective which focuses on developing employability skills and awareness within and across the curriculum. This is a challenge for many teachers whose awareness of the world of work outside a school environment is extremely limited. This means awareness of career options is based on a young person’s understanding of the value of learning as a means of opening doors. Those of us who work in schools will have often heard the plaintive wail of a bored child “what is the point of my learning [insert subject here]?” This is a damning indictment of how, and what we teach young people
I would agree with you, Peter, on the importance of embedding employability into the curriculum – yet, I wouldn’t want to overstate it either: education is not only there to prepare people for the workplace. I would attribute it its own value – the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, its benefits towards socialisation … well all that Humboldtian stuff.