VET / Training Organisation

Employers, governments and students often give different meanings to employability skills than academics (Hillage, Pollard, 1998, Harvey, 1999a, Conference Board Canada, 2000).

Kwok (2004) points out that employers often complain about the skills of their employees. He used the data from a Canadian survey (Angus Reid Group, 1999) among graduates who had graduated for less than 2 years. He found out that these graduates are convinced they developed and obtained employability skills which they used in their work environment. Based on the survey results, Kwok (2004) proposes that graduates should make their skills more explicit to employers.

We believe that the expectations of employers should be further analysed. Harvey (1999a, p 13) put forward that employability is about the relationship between higher education and employment. According to Harvey (1999a, p 13), “employability raises fundamental questions about the purpose and structure of higher education”. It touches the balance of power between the education provider and the participants in the learning experience. According to him “employability is not about training or add-on skills but about how higher education develops critical, reflective, empowered learners”.

We are convinced that the current demands of the fast changing labour market require interdisciplinary teaching and specific skill development. Every discipline should make its own analysis - based on its strengths and weaknesses - of which skills should be developed for lifelong learning. This is happening at the moment in many companies which set up their own executive programmes for their employees, often directed by university professors.

It seems that most European higher education institutions do not yet consider lifelong learning as one of their core activities. They have not committed to lifelong learning as much as they could. This can be deduced from the fact that they are not so concerned with the needs of employability, nor with the pedagogical and organisational changes necessary to take this forward. A problem of the mismatch between the labour market and the graduates of our higher education institutions still exists according to Quintin (2008), Director General for Education and Culture at the European Commission. Some university leaders and government representatives responsible for HE, however, would say that it is not a part of their role to solve these problems and that this match cannot be expected (Teichler, 2009).

Models which provide another type of education more adapted to the needs of diverse and sometimes large groups in society are less well known. Problems arise when traditional universities want to fulfil multiple missions (including life long learning) without proper conceptual models and insufficient support.

Technology has been able to rejuvenate many businesses. Many higher education institutions have invested in ICT, but are not fully exploiting it. Discussions about e-learning strategies are confusing, because of the multiple terms and practices used to refer to ICT applications: from ICT as an administrative tool, to a pedagogical tool on campus or in distance education, to a virtual university.

The fact that ICT could play an important role in the development of institutional strategies for lifelong learning and even in the whole organisation of the university is not always recognized, at least not by the top management of most traditional higher education institutions. In the UK, the Cooke report (2008) stated in the introduction (p 7, 2.1.): “ICT is not always considered strategically by senior management against the business needs of the institution”.

A study for the UK Joint Information Services Committee (JISC) about how and why senior leaders do or do not integrate technology into institutional strategies of HEI’s (Duke, Jordan, Powell, 2008), found out that most members of senior management teams (SMT) lack a deep understanding of technology. They rely on the collaboration of ICT staff with complementary skills (often obtained outside the HE sector) to deliver the contribution of technology to the strategic goals of the HEI. It is not clear if leaders understand what technology can or cannot deliver.

Traditional universities are struggling with the concept of ICT. Duderstadt (2000, p 108) observes that universities played leading roles in developing the information technology that is transforming society, but that they have been slow to adapt it to their own educational activities. He also states that academics are inclined to reject scholarship or technology aimed at improving learning because it might threaten familiar pedagogical paradigms. According to him, faculty members prefer endless debates about the curricula rather than discussing the total student experience.

Our service would consist of making that the potential of ICT for the transformation of research, teaching and learning is understood. Members of the traditional higher education community still relate ICT use to the mastering of technical skills necessary for technical support, partly out of fear for further developments based on reflections within a strategic framework.