Employability of university graduates in spain. oeeu project

Abstract

In the last years, the promotion of employability and the achievement of competences have become a priority for universities within the European Higher Education Area. For universities, this has entailed a renovated concern for their graduates' integration into the labour market and the mismatches between the competences achieved during academic education and the employers' requirements. In the new educational paradigm, competences have become the reference from which the education of university students is organized, planned and evaluated, so the Quality Agencies have introduced new criteria related to employability in academic programs assessment. However, in Spain there is not enough information on these issues, especially regarding the competences that students will need in their career path and the role of higher education in its acquisition, the factors that influence to obtain a job and job stability, job and education satisfaction, the suitability of the educational methodologies, or the mismatches between education and labour market. With this aim, in 2012, the Observatory for Employability and University Employment was created. The objective of this article is to present the results of this systemic university policy initiative focused on monitoring and measuring the employability and employment of university graduates in Spain.