Editorial

Abstract

Welcome to Volume 9 of the Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability.

The results of the 2017 Employer Satisfaction Survey (ESS), which reported the views of over 4,000 employers about the attributes of recent graduates from Australian higher education institutions, indicate that overall 84 per cent of these employers were satisfied with the graduates who worked for them. Furthermore 93 per cent of supervisors reported that the qualification prepared the graduate ‘very well’ or ‘well’ for their current employment. This suggests a good correlation between the skills and knowledge acquired by higher education graduates during their studies and the requirements of their jobs after graduation.

Interestingly, in the same report,25 per cent of the graduates indicated that they thought their degree was less important to their employment than their supervisors did. But herein lies the issue: we must remember that Degree A does not necessarily lead to Career A. A university course –particularly at undergraduate level –is often a grounding in a discipline which, most, importantly, enables students to think, learn and communicate in more sophisticated ways. In many universities, about half the commencing cohort enter less vocationally defined degree courses. Regardless, many change direction during their undergraduate degrees, as they find the right ‘next step’ for them.

Reports like these sometimes lead us to the perception that the value of such a degree experience is lower. Indeed, sometimes in the mainstream media, we hear about ‘useless degrees’. Education is a good thing, no degree is useless in itself, but we can see why some think this way if they are under the impression that a degree is a first step on a clearly defined career pathway. There are boundless reports reminding us that the world of work is changing rapidly, and so educational pathways into finding meaningful work are also likely to be changing.

Nevertheless, this is a reminder that there is still work to be done in making more explicit to students where these graduate skills and competencies are incorporated into courses, units, teaching and learning experiences and assessment tasks–and the various ways in which they might assemble the evidence to future employers in various fields as to how they might flourish in a particular area of work.