Beyond Embedding Employability: Towards the Development of Higher Skills and Attributes in Higher Education

Embedding employability into university curricula has been a perennial challenge over the last twenty-five years or more. In the UK, the Dearing Report published in 1997, and the Robbins Report  thirty years before that, recognised the important role that Universities play in developing higher skills, with Dearing explicitly recommending that institutions develop mechanisms whereby students can ‘monitor, build and reflect upon their personal development’.  Whilst broader in scope, the 2019 Review of Post-18 Education and Funding led by Philip Auger robustly supported closer integration between employers and academic courses through, for example, the growth of degree apprenticeships.

A plethora of innovative and thoughtful models have been developed to support Universities to effectively articulate, and embed, employability skills into their academic curricula. However, whilst the majority of Universities in the UK and globally have published their own sets of graduate attributes which carefully articulate what it means to be an alumnus of their university, most have made less progress in systematically embedding the development of these skills and attributes through a whole institutional approach. On the contrary, where employability skills have been successfully and meaningfully embedded it is often at a local level, usually arising from a collaboration between receptive and enthusiastic academics and/or course teams and centrally located careers units, as part of an individual module or course. As a result, Higher Education institutions have most commonly adopted a hybrid approach to employability and graduate skills development out of necessity rather than design, where a co-curricular employability service runs in parallel to an uneven and unsystematic embedded offer.

Until recently, this approach has remained relatively unchanged in UK Higher Education. However, there are currently several forces, in England at least, but arguably more broadly, which are converging to drive forward the need for a sharper articulation focus of skills development and, in so doing, ensuring their systemic embeddedness as an institutional imperative.

Forces for Change

1.       The B3 Condition of Regulation

The first factor relates specifically to the English HE sector and arises from the Office for Students’ B3 condition of registration which requires that institutions deliver successful outcomes for their students which are ‘recognised and valued by employers, and/or enable further study’. The inclusion of Graduate Outcomes as a measure of institutional success has focused the minds of university leaders to attend to the quality and accessibility of their employability offer with many looking at how academic courses support employability through industry collaboration, authentic learning experiences and live assessment briefs. Aligned with this is the requirement in the Teaching Excellence Framework 2023 for universities to articulate how they are conceptualising and measuring ‘educational gain’. Whilst higher education institutions are being encouraged to define educational gain within the context of their own mission and values, Fung 2023 notes that, for many, it is being articulated around the development of core sets of graduate skills and attributes. Inevitably where institutions have articulated the development of these skills through their co- curricular or (in other words) ‘optional’ student offer, the strength of argument around the educational gain for all students is much less convincing and arguably warrants a more embedded approach.

2.       The Need for Competency-Based Frameworks

Secondly, professional accrediting bodies are increasingly demanding the explicit inclusion of competency-based frameworks which address wider skills-sets relating to ethics, societal benefit and environmental impacts. In addition, Subject Benchmark Statements, developed and revised by the QAA, which describe the nature of study and the academic standards expected of graduates in specific subject areas, have begun to incorporate consideration of how practice within disciplines addresses wider social goals, such as equality, diversity and inclusivity, education for sustainable development and enterprise and entrepreneurship. In this way, and as a matter of course, through accreditation and existing quality assurance processes, academic teams are being required to more effectively embed consideration of professional behaviours and skills into their curricula.

3.       The Growth of Generative AI

Thirdly, the exponential growth in generative AI is opening up academic curricula to scrutiny, posing challenging questions about the characteristics of graduate skills. In particular, generative AI has brought into stark focus the balance between the development of skills and the acquisition of knowledge in higher education. The ubiquity of generative AI provides an excellent opportunity to redefine higher skills as delivered through a university curriculum, realigning the balance between their development and subject content.

4.       Changing Relations Between Students and Institutions

Finally, the changing relationship between students and their institutions, and, in particular, the decline of the ‘boarding school’ model of Higher education, as well as the unprecedented fiscal challenges in the sector, provide a unique opportunity to drive more innovative course design and delivery which more effectively aligns the co-curricular offer with, and within, academic courses. Added to this, the cost-of-living crisis has meant that, for many students, there is less time to devote to co-curricular activities which, arguably, have become the preserve of the most privileged students. As discussed above within the context of educational gain, there is an opportunity to reframe the delivery model in higher education to more robustly embed skills development into academic courses.

Enabling Successful Embedding

If universities are to take full advantage of this opportunity to embed skills development into their academic curricula, then several key additional actions will undoubtedly support a successful transition:

1.       Reframe ‘employability’

There is no doubt that employability is a complex and multi-layered term, but generally, meanings coalesce around the need to ensure that students have the knowledge, skills and experiences they need to be successful in their future careers. However, to most effectively embed skills development, it is helpful to recast and widen the intended purpose beyond employment success to encompass personal, as well as, professional success.

2.       Focus on the articulation, as well as the development, of skills

It is important to support students to articulate and exemplify their skills and attributes confidently for a wide range of audiences. As Yonkers eloquently describes the development that is required is not only that of the students’ graduate attributes themselves, but their confidence to understand and articulate their value in professional (and personal) environments, in and through their disciplinary contexts. Careers teams have effective strategies to support this, and working with subject experts, ensures the disciplinary flavour.

3.       Intentionalise the legitimacy of  ‘academy without walls’

It is essential to recognise that students from all backgrounds are already navigating the real world and are developing their skills and competencies by simply living their complex and multi-faceted lives. The development afforded by these experiences - of being enterprising, resilient, empathetic and adaptable (to name a few) - is as valid as that articulated through traditional university activities such as placements, volunteering or study abroad. However, the value of these skills are not always recognised by the students themselves, or indeed, their University. Moreover, with the cost-of-living crisis, many more students are working extensive hours often in positions of significant responsibility as managers and team leaders (and sometimes business owners), thereby affording them ‘employability’ experiences that previous generations of students may have had less exposure to and a skills-set that should be intentionally legitimised.

4.       Embeddedness in (reconfigured) academic protocols

Whilst the first set of recommendations recognise the need for an ‘academy without walls’, where academic teams collaborate closely with both internal and external stakeholders, there must also be a reciprocal process through which the rebuilding of courses are translated through, and into, the protocols of academia such as programme and module learning outcomes, learning and teaching practices and assessment rationales and criteria thereby ensuring legitimacy and quality standards.

5.       Alignment with curriculum design and enhancement

There needs to be a greater focus in universities on how the embedding of skills development can be supported through existing processes of curriculum design and enhancement, with course teams working much more closely with academic developers and professional services, including career and employability teams, to reframe and rearticulate their courses. This is in addition to the benefit of working with industry partners and external stakeholders in building an effective academic offer.

6.       Actively enabling university collaborations

The final step is the requirement for cultural transformation, a priority often overlooked by university leaders. To be effective, the embeddedness of skills development must be seamless. To achieve this, institutions must actively enable collaborations between academics and professional services. This will not happen without intentional support from senior leadership to align identities, protocols and ways of working. This is a multi-faceted process could include:

• Supporting professional services colleagues to develop their learning and teaching practice and pedagogic approach.

• Creating career development pathways and leadership roles for academics and professional services staff in this third space.

Case Study at Kingston University: The Future Skills Student Journey

In my own institution, Kingston University, we have begun to build on some of these aspects through our Future Skills approach.  Our Future Skills Graduate attributes are based on our extensive work with industry (published in our Future Skills Reports) and articulate the higher-level skills required to future-proof our students in ever changing and complex professional contexts.

Future Skills are delivered through a consistent programme that reaches all students – ensures that these attributes are explicitly developed and assessed at each level of undergraduate study, delivering the value added often missed by those students unable to engage in the extra or co-curricular offer. Two institutional ‘Future Skills’ learning outcomes at each level support both the development and articulation of self, and the demonstration of skills and attributes in different contexts. While the learning outcomes are mandatory across the institution, course teams can implement and assess them within the context of their subject-specific learning contexts. Crucially, the delivery of future skills is built on a partnership between academic colleagues and the central careers service. Read more about the Future Skills Student Journey at Kingston University.

Dr Annie Hughes is the Head of the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre at Kingston University. She is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education and a National Teaching Fellow.

Premium Content