You have been asked by your Company, to submit a paper to one of the Leading Management journals detailing current research on meeting the needs of business by specifying Graduate Attributes in Higher Education in Australia.
The concept of the attributes of the graduates has been hold close across the globe as a way of promoting the national competitiveness in the international economy. However, the enhancement in the factor of employability of the graduates is one of the key challenges that ahs been noted in the strategic schedule of the providers of higher education. Employers in Australia too are mostly concerned about the capability of the fresh graduates in fulfilling the present and future requirements of workplace. The ever-increasing competition for the graduate openings and the rate of unemployment in Europe and Australia has been forcing the universities across the nations in rethinking their programs for graduation (Osmani et al., 2015). The graduate skill progress in the higher education has curtailed from the increasing pressures on the industry from the extreme global competition and the advancement of the technology at rapid rate. In the recent years, this pressure has only augmented due to the reason of fewer vacancies for graduates and job market contraction. Within this environment, developing the correct attributes of a graduate becomes a key challenge for the higher level institutions in Australia, compounded by the communication lack existing between the educators and the employers for identifying the expected factors in monitoring the performance of graduates. The recent graduated have been facing a tougher job market within Australia, causing them in staying either unemployed or indulge themselves in low pay jobs against their wishes.
In response to this, Leong & Kavanagh, (2013) stated that some of the leading universities within Australia have come up with various initiative proposals aimed towards enhancing the skills of the students. They have been sorting from part of the activities in professional development to endeavor at incorporating the related functional and interpersonal skills into the study programs of academic in Australia. The most commonly focused graduate aspects and aptitudes of the Business and Management takes in solving problems, team work, time management, technology skills relevant to information and communication. A literature review suggests the fact that, previous researches have been able to outline the significant features that is required to be entrenched in the education of graduation. Global employers are still very much concerned with the ability of these new graduates in fulfilling the requirements of the workplace in the best of manners. This literature review would be dealing with the attributes of the graduate and take in the employability challenge that exists.
The monitoring of the literature on the skills of the graduates discloses that the alliance of the stakeholder is one of the key areas that require to be dealt with for developing the issue of employability for graduates. Most of unrelated and out-dated prospectus in the system of higher education has led to the ill-preparation of the graduates studying in university. According to Belwal, Priyadarshi & Al Fazari, (2017), the methods for teaching and the lack of better career leadership causing bigger debate over the factor of employability, as the graduates are not being able to satisfy the employer’s needs. It is high time when the overall group of stakeholders like the educational policy makers, employers and graduates should work in tandem in making an effort of creating mutual understanding, for collaborating and enhancing the enhancement of graduate employability. Several studies have also been able to examine the extent to which the employers’ expectation matches that with the observation of the students nearing-graduates about the necessary skills of computing required at the workplace. The claim has been that the lack of any sort of communication between the potential employees and their employers generally makes it hard for the employers in finding graduates who has the desired level of skill of computing. The concept of collaboration of the stakeholders is further analyzed through highlighting of the significance of the listening skills for both the employers of the graduates of accounting and the accountants, finding that the communal input by the students of accounting. The educators are required in achieving the outcome of improved skills. Such studies have made it apparent that the stakeholder collaboration could be made use as an opportunity for developing the graduate employability.
An in-depth evaluation of the literature has displayed a bigger mismatch existing between the proficiencies obtained during the course of graduation and those that are being required by the industry. The level to which the students at the graduation prospects, in terms of capabilities and skills improved through the process of higher education are being evaluated, are convergent to the requirements of the employers. The findings of such study has been that both the employers and the graduates to a certain extent have similar sort of expectations from the services of the higher education, however, varying in the degree of prominence. It has been witnessed that some of the skills that are being required by the industry people like project management, interpersonal and presentation skills differentiate from that of the job seekers obtain in the graduate school (Belwal et al., 2017). The competencies that are being required by the graduates of the universities within the labor market have been well identified by the researchers and the mismatch that exists between the demands of the employers and the university graduates seeking higher education. The outcome of such studies highlighted the fact that the competencies that are being most valued by the employers within a graduate is their technical know-how along with the interpersonal skill.
The review of the literature have also been able to find that the stress factor of the employees is more on the process of selection and paying much lesser attention towards the degrees. Osmani et al., (2015), conducted a study or recognizing the factors having an impact on the employability factor of the university graduates. 17 of the employability factors were being grouped into the five higher-order class of competencies. They originated that the employers consigns the highest significance on the factor of soft-skills and lowest to the reputation of the student academic wise. Very few studies have been found over the database suggesting peer estimation equipping the graduates with the compulsory and essential skills for the jobs they would undertake in future. O’Leary, (2017) investigated the probability of the peer evaluation as a policy of developing the skills of employability. It has been found that the students displayed an affirmative attitude towards the factor of peer appraisal, however having enough concerns over the capability of theirs in assessing the peers and to the accountability connected with the evaluating peers. On similar stances, Tomlinson & Tomlinson, (2017) observed the dependability of the peer measurement in developing the skills of written communication of the students of accounting in one of the universities of Australia. The findings exposed an important positive change in the capability of the students for applying the standards of assessment to the components related to structural and presentation of the communication of written nature.
Oliver, (2013) have been drawing awareness to the challenges connected with the improvement of the complicated graduate traits, and the restrictions of the conventional assessment advancement for assessing the outcomes of the learning. Traditional approaches of assessment takes into account the certified learning outcomes and conveying grades based on the indicators of performance which might not hold valid for reviewing the learning that is accomplished in the process of learning. Some of the studies have been focusing on the strategy outlines for developing the skills of the graduates and the factor of employability. For instance, Oliver, (2013) improved on the rational, practical reproduction of employability that can be used as structure for working with the students for improving on their employability. Daniels & Brooker, (2014) investigated the factors that have influenced the competence level in the skills of employability, and also the recognized ways in which the stakeholders find ways of adjusting the curricula for enhancing the outcome of the skills of the graduate. A model has been presented of the comprehensive concept of the employability of graduates, of which the form of skill development is an important part. In one of another studies, Nagarajan & Edwards, (2014) investigated the transfer of skill in the graduates as they start transition from the university to the workplace. The transfer is being influenced by the three elements which are the learning program, facets of workplace and the learner.
Lovell, et al., (2015) suggested the fact that the present understanding of the influence of the skills of graduate in Australia is restricted by the methodological and theoretical constriction. Their main highlight has been on the fact that the new analytical structure is needed that attaches and undoubtedly distinguishes the four facets of skills; development of skills, supply of skills, demand of skills and deployment of skills. The main argument has been of the fact that a proper distinction is required to be made between the skills of the graduate and the graduate skills. The graduate skills can be defined as the analytical skills that is being obtained at the university level, while the skill factor of the graduates are the skills that is being attained at home, university or in the internships while being in the course of graduate. Their suggestion was that, in evaluating the main impact of the graduate skills, there is requirement for focusing on the ‘skill level of the graduate’ instead of the merely ‘graduate skills’.
Incorporating the attributes of the graduates into the core curriculum could be one of the ways in meeting the present and future requirements ate the workplace. Baker, (2014) hypothesize the benefits and the impact of the incorporated business learning on the learning of the students in the vocational courses of ICT. The students highly value and benefit themselves from such courses offering significant associations to the factual world of work. Sarkar et al., (2016) took into account needed skills for the graduates learning the information systems (IS), highlighting the existing mismatch between the skills gained within the universities during the course and the skills that is genuinely being required by the industry. Tymon, (2013) monitored the fact that for investigating whether the significance of several skills varies in the entry level for the IT workers who inquire about employment in the IT industry, much contrasting to those who have been seeking employment in some of the other sectors. Their research findings states that the programs related to IT should be focusing on the outcomes of learning that supports a high competency level in the parts of acquaintance, programming languages and methodologies of systems development lifecycle within the IT industry.
Kalfa & Taksa, (2015) explored the ways the graduates of the information management has been constructing their own employability. Their findings have been on the ways the graduates go about explaining their study value is significant to appreciate ways to support the changeover into work more efficiently. Boateng, Adu & Eghan, (2015), have required the current graduates of ICT opinions in the workplace for helping inform the syllabus.
Conclusion:
The main aim of this paper was to assume a complete analysis of the relevant literature in dealing with the gap existing between the requirements of the labor market and the higher education, making use of the article over the database. It has been found that none of the prior studies has yet been able to execute the complete review of the attributes of the graduates. The studies that have been reviewed recognized the broader gap between the satisfied make up of an academic curriculum and the skills required for ensuing in the workplace. Some researchers have been blaming the requirement of research in the undergraduate business education while others have been blaming the deficiency of ample research on the strategies and tactics for instilling of the skills of communication among the undergraduate students. Thereby, universities require implanting the graduate attributes as a part of their prospectus, as well as through the supplementary programs of employability. In respect to all these, fostering of closer associations between the industry and the university would assist in recognizing the present trends and requirement of employers in terms of skills and the graduation aspects that are the most demanded.
References:
Baker, L. (2014). Enhancing employability skills and graduate attributes through work-integrated learning. 2013 postgraduate research papers: a compendium, 51.
Belwal, R., Priyadarshi, P., & Al Fazari, M. H. (2017). Graduate attributes and employability skills: graduates’ perspectives on employers’ expectations in Oman. International Journal of Educational Management, (just-accepted), 00-00.
Boateng, J. K., Adu, M. O., & Eghan, A. (2015). Enhancing Graduate Attributes and Employability through Standards Aligned Curriculum Delivery.
Daniels, J., & Brooker, J. (2014). Student identity development in higher education: implications for graduate attributes and work-readiness. Educational Research, 56(1), 65-76.
Kalfa, S., & Taksa, L. (2015). Cultural capital in business higher education: reconsidering the graduate attributes movement and the focus on employability. Studies in Higher Education, 40(4), 580-595.
Leong, R., & Kavanagh, M. (2013). A work integrated learning (WIL) framework to develop graduate skills and attributes in an Australian university’s accounting program. Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 14(1), 1-14.
Lovell, C., Kinash, S., Judd, M., Crane, L., Knight, C., McLean, M., … & Schwerdt, R. (2015). Case studies to enhance graduate employability: Graduate attributes.
Nagarajan, S. V., & Edwards, J. (2014). Is the graduate attributes approach sufficient to develop work ready graduates?. Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability, 5(1), 12-28.
O’Leary, S. (2017). Enhancing graduate attributes and employability through initiatives with external partners. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 12(3), 505-518.
Oliver, B. (2013). Graduate attributes as a focus for institution-wide curriculum renewal: innovations and challenges. Higher Education Research & Development, 32(3), 450-463.
Osmani, M., Weerakkody, V., Hindi, N. M., Al?Esmail, R., Eldabi, T., Kapoor, K., & Irani, Z. (2015). Identifying the trends and impact of graduate attributes on employability: a literature review. Tertiary Education and Management, 21(4), 367-379.
Sarkar, M., Overton, T., Thompson, C., & Rayner, G. (2016). Graduate employability: views of recent science graduates and employers. International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education (formerly CAL-laborate International), 24(3).
Tomlinson, M., & Tomlinson, M. (2017). Forms of graduate capital and their relationship to graduate employability. Education+ Training, 59(4), 338-352.
Tymon, A. (2013). The student perspective on employability. Studies in higher education, 38(6), 841-856.
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