109 results on '"HUMAN capital"'
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2. Employability Capitals as Essential Resources for Employment Obtainment and Career Sustainability of International Graduates
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Thanh Pham, Behnam Soltani, and Jasvir Kaur Nachatar Singh
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This study deployed a mixed-method approach to explore how international graduates identified and strategically utilised their resources to negotiate employability in the host country. One hundred and eighty international graduates from Australian universities participated in a survey and in-depth interviews. Findings revealed that employability was determined by various forms of capital including human, cultural social, identity and psychological. More importantly, the graduates had to develop 'agentic capital' to decide how to utilise these forms of capital appropriately. Social and cultural capitals emerged as the crucially important elements when the graduates looked for opportunities to get a foot into the labour market. These forms of capital enabled the graduates to mobilise their human capital. However, to navigate barriers in the workplace, the articulation of a sound understanding about the working culture became a 'must' because the graduates found it hard to understand hidden rules and conventions in the labour market. Results from the study indicate that graduate employability should not just be measured right after students' graduation because different forms of capital play their significant roles at different stages of the graduates' career development. Besides, higher education should equip students with various forms of capital.
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- 2024
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3. Perceived Skill Outcomes among Coursework and Research Graduates and Evolution over Time
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Denise Jackson and Ian Li
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This study explores perceived skill outcomes among graduates of 39 Australian higher education institutions in the short- to medium-term after course completion. While acknowledging important dimensions of graduate employability beyond the skills-based approach, we investigated graduate perspectives on their industry-relevant skill outcomes from university, in preparation for employment. Using national data, we build on earlier research by examining the viewpoints of 24,044 research and coursework graduates, at all levels, at six months and three years post-graduation. We found that as graduates progressed in their careers, perceived skill outcomes from university became less favourable, particularly among coursework graduates. Further, we observed differing perceptions among student groups, emphasising the potential learning gain for non-traditional student groups participating in skill-related interventions, such as work-integrated learning, and the need to design activities which cater to differing needs and are accessible by all. The study highlights how exploring graduate perspectives into the longer term can develop our understanding of the value of university education for enhancing skills and identifying potential areas for curriculum review.
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- 2024
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4. Graduate Capitals and Employability: Insights from an Australian University Co-Curricular Scholarship Program
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Joanne Gleeson, Rosalyn Black, Amanda Keddie, and Claire Charles
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This paper explores how students participating in a co-curricular scholarship programme in a large Australian university develop their employability. It seeks to add to recent literature regarding different approaches to graduate employability through examining how participating students' capital acquisition is shaped by and internalised within the structure and culture of the scholarship. The paper also offers an example of how comprehensive and integrated co-curricular scholarship programmes can facilitate graduate employability. It suggests that despite curricular intentions to promote comprehensive and processual approaches to employability, students' employability internalisations are influenced by possessive and positional messages and cultural cues within the scholarship programme. These insights serve as important considerations for higher education institutions seeking to instigate or improve their employability curricula.
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- 2024
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5. In Search of Responsible Career Guidance: Career Capital and Personal Purpose in Restless Times
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Franz Wohlgezogen and Valeria S. Cotronei-Baird
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Management educators have developed a wide variety of approaches to ensure students develop job-ready skills, resilience, and other forms of career capital to gain and retain employment in an ever-changing, competitive job market. Yet, concerns about the employability agenda's consequences for students' self-concept and wellbeing have gained urgency amid a crisis of confidence in capitalism. Humanistic approaches to management education map an alternative path, starting from students' unique values, voices, and experiences, and leading to the pursuit of a personal purpose. In this essay, we explore the tensions and potential synergies of the career capital and personal purpose approaches to career preparation and support. Building on our experiences at the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Business and Economics, we discuss how integrative learning experiences can combine these two approaches to (1) encourage students to recognize the mutual influence of career capital and personal purpose; and (2) provide rich opportunities for external stakeholder involvement to contribute to students' career capital and personal purpose development efforts. We believe that our proposals for embracing both career capital and personal purpose considerations can help management educators recalibrate their efforts to help students develop personally meaningful and sustainable careers.
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- 2024
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6. Education Inequality. Discussion Paper No. 1849
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London School of Economics and Political Science (United Kingdom), Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), Blanden, Jo, Doepke, Matthias, and Stuhler, Jan
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This paper provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link between educational inequality and social mobility. We interpret this evidence from the perspective of economic models of skill acquisition and investment in human capital. The models account for different channels underlying unequal education and highlight how endogenous responses in parents' and children's educational investments generate a close link between economic inequality and educational inequality. Given concerns over the extended school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also summarize early evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children's education and on possible long-run repercussions for educational inequality.
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- 2022
7. Contextualised, Not Neoliberalised Professionalism in Early Childhood Education and Care: Effects of Prescribed Notions of Quality on Educator Confidence in Australia
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Rogers, Marg
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There is a standardised neoliberal inspired notion of what professionalism entails for early childhood educators. These standards tend to infiltrate much of the literature, reporting and pre-service educator training, creating a notion that educators are never quite good enough at what they do. Although constant reflection and aiming for excellence are strongly held Western ideals, the effect on educator confidence and their ability to recognise their own strengths and achievements can be real. This discussion paper seeks to challenge the idea that good quality early childhood practice can always be identified and standardised, arguing the need for professional discretionary decision-making in order to adjust practice to context. Drawing on an example from an Australian service, where knowledge, care, partnership and support for potentially vulnerable families to support their children was highly valued by parents, it illustrates that such qualities can go unrecognised by the staff themselves. What we risk losing when we prescribe what quality entails will be of interest to educational leaders, researchers and those who teach pre-service educators.
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- 2021
8. Provision of Foundation Skills Training by Community Education Providers in Regional Australia
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National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) (Australia), O'Dwyer, Lisel, and Mihelic, Mandy
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Defined as language, literacy and numeracy, and employability skills, foundation skills are essential for individuals to participate in further education, employment and wider society. Community education providers, such as community colleges, neighbourhood houses, faith-based organisations and adult learning associations, are key providers of foundation skills training. The characteristics of community education providers, such as their relatively small scale and flexibility in teaching strategies, make them particularly suitable for providing such training. Despite this, the impact of foundation skills training delivered by community education providers on education and employment outcomes and involvement in society is not well known, particularly in regional areas where the foundation skill levels of adults tend to be lower than in metropolitan areas. This research investigates the contribution that community education providers make to foundation skills training in regional Australia, the models of delivery which seemed to work best, and whether the undertaking of foundation skills training helped build the social and human capital of the individual and broader community. A multi-method approach is used including the administration of an online survey to both regional and metropolitan community education providers and follow-up telephone interviews with a selection of community education trainers and managers, along with an analysis of inquiries to the Reading Writing Hotline (a national referral service for adults looking for help with their literacy and numeracy skills) and analysis of Total VET Activity (TVA) data. [For the accompanying supporting document, "Provision of Foundation Skills Training by Community Education Providers in Regional Australia -- Support Document," see ED610611.]
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- 2021
9. Estimating the Returns to Education Using a Machine Learning Approach -- Evidence for Different Regions
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Kamdjou, Herve D. Teguim
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This article revisits the Mincer earnings function and presents comparable estimates of the average monetary returns associated with an additional year of education across different regions worldwide. In contrast to the traditional Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method commonly employed in the literature, this study applied a cutting-edge approach known as Support Vector Regression (SVR), which belongs to the family of machine learning (ML) algorithms. SVR is specifically chosen to address the bias arising from underfitting inherent in OLS. The analysis focuses on recent data spanning from 2010 to 2018, ensuring temporal homogeneity across the examined regions. The findings reveal that each additional year of education, on average, yields a private rate of returns of 10.4%. Notably, Sub-Saharan Africa exhibits the highest returns to education at 17.8%, while Europe demonstrates the lowest returns at 7.2%. Moreover, higher education is associated with the highest returns across the regions, with a rate of 12%, whereas primary education yields returns of 10%. Interestingly, women generally experience higher returns than men, with rates of 10.6 and 10.1%, respectively. Over time, the returns to education exhibit a modest decline, decreasing at a rate of approximately 0.1% per year, while the average duration of education demonstrates an increase of 0.16 years per year (1% per year). The application of the state-of-the-art ML technique, SVR, not only improves the accuracy of estimates but also enhances predictive performance measures such as the coefficient of determination (R[superscript 2]) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) when compared to the OLS method. The implications drawn from these findings emphasize the need for expanding university education, as well as investments in primary education, along with significant attention toward promoting girls' education. These findings hold considerable importance for policymakers who are tasked with making informed decisions regarding education expenditure and the implementation of education financing programs.
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- 2023
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10. Disrupting Assumptions about Graduate Employability: Exploring Culturally and Linguistically Diverse University Students' Graduate Capitals in Australia
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Baker, Sally, Xavier, Anna, Due, Clemence, Dunwoodie, Karen, and Newman, Alex
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Employability is a powerful discourse in higher education, yet as a driver for policy and practice it has not translated into an uplift in graduate outcomes for all student groups. In particular, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Migrant and/or Refugee (CALDMR) students experience inequitable graduate outcomes and access to meaningful employment opportunities. Drawing on a national study of career advisors and CALDMR students' experiences of how Australian universities support their career development, we examine CALDMR students' employability through the conceptual framework of graduate capitals. We make two key contributions: firstly, we offer insights into staff and student perceptions of university approaches with CALDMR. Secondly, we identify a lack of linguistic and cultural diversity conceptualisations of employability by examining the experiences of CALDMR students and staff through the lens of graduate capitals. We disrupt the assumptions and presumed familiarity with cultural knowledge.
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- 2023
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11. Education as Economic Stimulus in the Human Capital Century
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Forsyth, Hannah
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Purpose: This paper explores the economic and social effects of human capital investment in the 20th century. As well as drawing on census data and statistical yearbooks in Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand, the paper develops its argument by an intersection of scholarly work in sociology, economics and the history of education to consider the effects of increased human capital investment on economic growth but also on the experiences of childhood, work discipline and the present climate crisis. Design/methodology/approach: This paper considers the implications of what economic historian Claudia Goldin has described as the "human capital century" for the history of school and university education. By reconsidering education in the settler colonies, especially Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand, as "stimulus", this helps explain key aspects of contemporary human capital investment, which the paper argues should be understood as constituted by children's and young people's free labour at school, university and across the economy. Findings: This research argues that children's and young people's free labour, performed in educational institutions, constitutes a large portion of Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand's national investment in human capital. At key points, this investment has acted as an economic stimulus, promoting surges of profitability. The effects were not confined to young people. Systematised, educational expansion also became the foundation of environmental degradation, labour market exploitation and a relentless increase in service-sector productivity that is worn on professional bodies. Productivity increases have been associated with reduced professional autonomy as a managerial class coerced professionals into working harder, though often under the guise of working "smarter" -- a fiction that encouraged or coerced even greater personal investment in collective human capital. This investment of personal time, effort and selfhood by children and the professionals they grew into can thus be seen, in Marxian terms, as a crucial vector of capitalist exploitation in the 20th century. Practical implications: The paper concludes by suggesting that a reduction of managerial influence in educational settings would improve learner and professional autonomy with improved labour and environmental conditions. Originality/value: The paper makes a unique contribution to the history of education by exploring education as stimulus as a key component of education's role in 20th and 21st century capitalism. It interrogates exploitative aspects of human capital investment, especially in the midst of environmental catastrophe and the recent COVID crisis.
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- 2023
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12. A Critical Analysis of Unsustainable Higher Education Internationalisation Policies in Developing Economies
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Ramaswamy, Hari Hara Sudhan and Kumar, Sanjay
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International higher education in many developed countries and more particularly in the United States and Australia has become a great source of revenue for their economies from students of the developing and underdeveloped countries (Least Development Countries). Money together with the mobility of international students from Least Development Countries to the developed world have created social inequality with no sustainable method for successful and sustainable internationalisation policies and agendas. This situation of inequality is created by a viciously interdependent circle formed by the erosion of monetary, human and linguistic capital. Calamities beyond human control including COVID-19 amplify social inequality due to the aforementioned erosion of capital. This article compares the international higher education scenes in the USA and Australia which have strong educational collaborations with a developing country like India. The piece uses extant literature in partnership with the technique of discourse analysis to provide a critical analysis of the politics of the existing internationalisation policies in international higher education and provides suggestions to deliver better internationalisation policies.
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- 2022
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13. Does University Prestige Lead to Discrimination in the Labor Market? Evidence from a Labor Market Field Experiment in Three Countries
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Mihut, Georgiana
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Do employers prioritize university prestige above an applicant's skills in the hiring process? To distinguish between the effect of human capital in the hiring process from the effect of the name of the graduating university--while controlling for networking effects--2,400 fictitious applications were submitted to IT and accounting jobs in the US, UK, and Australia. The resumes belonged to fictitious citizens, both female and male. For each sector of the labor market, two resumes were designed. One resume had a high skills match with the generic requirements of entry level jobs in each sector. A second resume had a low skills match with the same requirements. For each country, one high-ranked university and one non-high-ranked university were selected to signal prestige. The name of the graduating university and the sex of the applicant were randomly assigned on otherwise identical resumes. High skills match applications were 79 percent more likely to receive a callback than low skills match applications. University prestige and sex were not statistically significant predictors of callbacks. These findings suggest that human capital, and not university prestige, predicts callback outcomes in skill intensive sectors of the labor market for entry-level applicants with a bachelor's degree.
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- 2022
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14. Determining Factors in Graduate Recruitment and Preparing Students for Success
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Jackson, Denise, Riebe, Linda, and Macau, Flavio
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Purpose: This study aims to investigate graduate employer perceptions of determining factors in recruitment decisions and their preferred use of recruitment channels. This study drew on the employability capitals model to interpret findings and identify ways to better prepare higher education students for recruitment and selection. This is particularly important in declining graduate labour markets, further weakened by COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach: This study gathered data from surveying 183 Australian employers from different organisational settings. Responses were analysed using descriptive and multivariate techniques, the latter exploring variations by role type, sector and organisation size. Findings: Findings reaffirmed the criticality of students having the right disposition and demonstrating professional capabilities during recruitment, highlighting the value of building cultural and human capital during university years. Recruitment channels that require students to mobilise their identity and social capital were prioritised, particularly among private sector organisations. Work-based internships/placements were considered important for identifying graduate talent and developing strong industry-educator partnerships, needed for building networks between students and employers. Originality/value: This study provides valuable insights into determinants of graduate recruitment decision-making from the employer perspective. These highlight to students the important role of capitals, and how they can be developed to optimise recruitment success. This study presents practical strategies for universities to build their students' human, social, cultural and identity capital. Findings on the prioritisation of recruitment channels among graduate employers from different sectors will enable students and universities to better prepare for future recruitment. It emphasises that student engagement with employability-related activities is a critical resource for an effective transition to the workplace.
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- 2022
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15. Evaluating the Soft Power of Outbound Student Mobility: An Analysis of Australia's New Colombo Plan
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Hong, Min
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Outbound student mobility can be regarded as an important foreign policy initiative to exert and increase national influence in host locations. But how to evaluate the specific soft power influences remains unsolved. In this article, an educational soft power framework that can provide a reference in evaluating soft power of related education activities in future empirical studies is proposed. Taking the Australian short-term student mobility program, New Colombo Plan, as an example, the soft power pursuit of outbound student mobility is analyzed. Evaluating its detailed soft power elements and influences is conducted by examining its evaluation reports under the framework. The study then provides some suggestions for future implementation and study for promoting soft power.
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- 2022
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16. Pedagogies for Sustainability: Insights from a Foundational Sustainability Course in the Built Environment
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Sandri, Orana and Holdsworth, Sarah
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Purpose: This paper aims to draw on an in-depth qualitative case study of an undergraduate sustainability education course to show the extent of pedagogical reflection and teaching capability demonstrated in lived practice to support transformative, systemic and capability building learning processes, as advocated in the literature, for effective sustainability education. Design/methodology/approach: Transformative learning and capability building are an essential part of sustainability education according to the growing body of literature. This approach to education, however, necessitates critical, learner-centred pedagogies which challenge traditional transmissive modes of teaching. Findings: This paper finds that pedagogy which supports the learning experiences and outcomes advocated in sustainability education literature requires significant reflection on behalf of the educator and also motivation, capability and experience to do this, thus more research and academic support is needed which focusses on pedagogical development within sustainability education. Originality/value: Literature on sustainability education often assumes that teachers are capable of reflecting on and transforming their pedagogical practice, and therefore, the pedagogical implications of sustainability education are often understated in research findings. This paper highlights why pedagogical reflection plays a crucial role in the effective implementation of sustainability education.
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- 2022
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17. Equity and Access to High Skills through Higher Vocational Education. Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning
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Knight, Elizabeth, Bathmaker, Ann-Marie, Moodie, Gavin, Orr, Kevin, Webb, Susan, Wheelahan, Leesa, Knight, Elizabeth, Bathmaker, Ann-Marie, Moodie, Gavin, Orr, Kevin, Webb, Susan, and Wheelahan, Leesa
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This book explores new and distinctive forms of higher vocational education across the globe, and asks how the sector is changing in response to the demands of the 21st century. These new forms of education respond to two key policy concerns: an emphasis on high skills as a means to achieve economic competitiveness, and the promise of open access for adults hitherto excluded from higher education. Examining a range of geographic contexts, the editors and contributors aim to address these contexts and highlight various similarities and differences in developments. They locate their analyses within the various political and socio-economic contexts, which can make particular reforms possible and achievable in one context and almost unthinkable in another. Ultimately, the book promotes a critical understanding of evolving provisions of higher vocational education, refusing assumptions that policy borrowing from apparently 'successful' countries offers a straightforward model for others to adopt.
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- 2022
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18. Knowledge Mapping of Skills Mismatch Phenomenon: A Scientometric Analysis
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Draissi, Zineb, Zhanyong, Qi, and Raguindin, Princess Zarla Jurado
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Purpose: This paper aims to understand the development track of skills mismatch research and discover the hidden internal connections between literature. Design/methodology/approach: The authors gathered data through scientometric quantitative analysis using CiteSpace. Specifically, this article applied basic analysis, journal cocitation analysis (JCA), author cocitation analysis (ACA) and document cocitation analysis (DCA), cluster analysis, citation burstness detection, scientific research cooperation analysis and coconcurrence analysis of keywords of 3,125 documents from Web of Science core collections for the period 2000-2020. Findings: Through the document cocitation analysis and the keywords' co-occurrence, this article identifies influential scholars, documents, research institutions, journals and research hotspots in research on the skills mismatch phenomenon. The results showed that the publications had ballooned, and the phenomenon has become an interdisciplinary research subject. The USA and Finland remain the main contributors, which is attributed to their high-yield institutions such as the University of Helsinki, the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Washington and so on. While the African continent lacks research on skills mismatch even with the continent's effort to overcome such a crucial issue. The paper presents an in-depth analysis of skills and educational mismatch issues to better understand the evolutionary trajectory of the collective knowledge over the past 20 years and highlight the areas of active pursuit. Research limitations/implications: The authors only used Web of Science core collection to collect data; however, they can added Scopus indexed database as well to extend the research trends and explore more new research hot topics to solve the skills mismatch phenomenon. Originality/value: The scientometric analysis is of great significance for identifying the potential relationship between the literature and investigating the knowledge evolution of skills mismatch research. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization are the giants who are mostly concerned of the mismatch skills phenomenon. Researchers can refer to this study to understand the status quo, gaps and research trends to deal with the skills mismatch issue.
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- 2022
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19. International Graduate Returnees' Accumulation of Capitals and (Re)positioning in the Home Labour Market in Vietnam: The Explorer, the Advancer or the Adventurer?
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Tran, Ly Thi and Bui, Huyen
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International graduate employability is critical to host universities' positioning in the education export market, internationalisation agenda and ethical responsibility to international students and alumni. However, little is known about the positioning and re-positioning of international graduates in their home labour market. This article responds to this critical gap in the literature by drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 Vietnamese graduates from Australian universities who have returned to their home country since 2015. The qualitative data were interpreted through the innovative conceptual framework combining Bourdieu's forms of capital and Harré's positioning theory. The study found the emergence of three distinctive positionings of Vietnamese returning graduates: the "explorer," the "advancer" and the "adventurer." Based on the empirical findings, the study contributes to the literature on graduate employability by showing that labour market navigation is an ongoing interaction between initial capitals and continued accumulation of capitals, which play a critical role in determining returnees' positioning and repositioning in the market. The findings of the study provide important implications for returning graduates as well as host universities and home employers to provide effective support for this cohort to enhance their employability and facilitate their access to the home labour market.
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- 2021
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20. Notions of Human Capital and Academic Identity in the PhD: Narratives of the Disempowered
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Pretorius, Lynette and Macaulay, Luke
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An important component of PhD students' educational experiences is the understanding they develop of their academic identity. In this study, we explore PhD students' expectations and lived realities during their studies through the lens of Bourdieu's theory of practice. We show that doctoral students perceive the PhD as an all-consuming endeavor and, at the same time, a degree of competing demands. Importantly, several doctoral students' academic identities were laden with conceptions of marginalization, which evoked feelings of disempowerment and lead to a lack of agency. Therefore, this study advocates for a doctoral environment where different forms of human capital are valued and the voices of PhD students are respected within the academy. This will ensure that future scholars are able to enter the academy with a strong sense of who they are and where they fit within their field.
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- 2021
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21. Educational Aspirations and Experiences of Refugee-Background African Youth in Australia: A Case Study
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Molla, Tebeje
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Access to educational opportunities is instrumental for social integration of refugee youth. This paper reports on a qualitative case study of educational aspirations and experiences of refugee-background African youth (RAY) in Melbourne, Australia. Guided by a capability approach to social justice, in-depth interviews were conducted with two groups of RAY: those who have transitioned to higher education (HE), and those who have not transitioned to HE after completing high school. The findings show that: (a) RAY share a firm belief in the value of HE; (b) but they are differently positioned to convert opportunities into achievements -- e.g. only the refugee youth with high levels of navigational capacity take advantage of the available flexible pathways to HE; (c) the stress of racism pervades the educational experiences of both groups; and (d) some African refugee youth have shown a considerable level of resilience in that, despite the challenges of racism, a history of disrupted educational trajectories and a lack of scholarly resources at home, they have transitioned to and thrived in HE. In light of these findings, the paper draws some implications for equity policies and practices.
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- 2021
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22. International Education and Graduate Employability: Australian Chinese Graduates' Experiences
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Singh, Jasvir Kaur Nachatar and Fan, Shea X.
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This article investigates how international educational experiences affect the employment opportunities of Chinese who graduated from an Australian university. Findings based on 26 semi-structured interviews highlight that Chinese students who graduated from Australia gained a web of capital (i.e., human, cultural, psychological and identity), which facilitated their employment upon return home. However, social capital, which is critical in China, was a weakness for Chinese students who graduated from overseas institutions. The findings have provided strong evidence that Chinese students' employability benefited from studying overseas. This research utilised the Tomlinson's Graduate Capital Model to an international education context. It has implications for Chinese students on how they could benefit from studying overseas and for universities that recruit Chinese international students.
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- 2021
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23. Effective Techniques for the Promotion of Library Services and Resources
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Yi, Zhixian
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Introduction: This study examines how Australian academic librarians perceive techniques for promoting services and resources, and the factors affecting the perceptions regarding effectiveness of techniques used. Method: Data were collected from an online survey that was sent to 400 academic librarians in thirty-seven Australian universities. The response rate was 57.5%. Analysis: The qualitative data were analysed using content analysis. The collected quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics (ordinal regressions). Results: Librarians used a variety of techniques to promote services and resources. Demographic variables, human capital variables and library variables were significant predictors of perceptions of the effective promotion techniques used. However, this study indicates that other independent variables such as number of different library professional positions and years involved in all library services made no difference. Conclusions: This study provides a better understanding of academic librarians' attitudes and views towards techniques for promoting services and resources. Librarians may use the results to reflect on the effectiveness of these techniques, to balance the weight of the factors' influences and to better understand various promotion techniques. This will enable them to promote library services and resources more effectively in the future.
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- 2016
24. Beyond Human Capital: Student Preparation for Graduate Life
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Benati, Kelly and Fischer, Juan
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Purpose: This research moves beyond a focus on employability skills and explores student perceptions of preparedness for graduate life in a more holistic manner. Design/methodology/approach: Final-year business students were asked to outline their concerns regarding graduate life and the personal and professional challenges anticipated in their careers. The results are presented in the context of graduate capitals, which is a broader view than the more traditional skills-based approach. Findings: The results indicate students do not feel underprepared for the workplace in terms of human capital, social capital, cultural capital and identity capital. However, many students feel inadequately prepared in terms of psychological capital and their ability to deal with the expected challenges of the workplace such as stress, long hours and the demands of a professional environment. Research limitations/implications: This study extends our knowledge of student preparation for the workplace and suggests research opportunities to better understand psychological capital development in graduates. Practical implications: Greater confidence and a perception of preparedness may be increased for graduates if opportunities for psychological capital development and increased promotion of its importance are enhanced. Social implications: The results encourage a more holistic approach to employability in graduates and have relevance for all stakeholders concerned with graduate outcomes and workplace transition. Originality/value: The paper presents work-readiness in the context of graduate capitals, which is broader than the traditional skills-based approach. It also focuses on student perceptions of their level of preparation for the workplace. This has enabled results which highlight psychological capital development as a key area in which students feel underprepared
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- 2020
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25. Towards a Neoliberal Education System in Queensland: Preliminary Notes on Senior Secondary Schooling Reforms
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Rodgers Gibson, Morgan
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Neoliberalism is often understood as being both an epoch of capitalism and a zealous ideological commitment to the primacy of private property and free markets. In practice, it has tended towards mobilising state power in the interests of capital, remaking societies and individuals in this process. Perhaps inevitably, education systems, the world over, have been reformed in light of neoliberalism's overarching imperatives. It is in this light that we can best understand and make sense of recent reforms to Queensland's senior secondary schooling system. While some details continue to be ironed out, the reformed system will revolve around three main planks: (a) an assessment model combining school-based and common external assessment, (b) a process that quantifies and standardises school-based assessment through external review processes and (c) a transition away from the Overall Position (OP) rank towards an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR). These changes to assessment and tertiary admission represent a pivot away from Queensland's historical commitments to school-based assessment and teacher and curriculum flexibility towards a standardised national system of curriculum and external assessment. Ultimately, the reforms embody the ideological commitments of neoliberalism, perpetuating schools as producers of human capital. Hence, Queensland's senior secondary schooling reforms ought to be understood through two different frames: firstly, as embodying the dominant ideological imperatives of neoliberalism and, secondly, that education is, within this context, being reconstituted to meet the perceived needs of capital.
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- 2019
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26. Research Messages 2014
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National Centre for Vocational Education Research and National Centre for Vocational Education Research
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"Research Messages 2014" is a collection of summaries of research published by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) in 2014 in the context of changing economic, industrial, social and education conditions, organised under the following broad categories: (1) Productivity: to sustain and build Australia's human capital; (2) Participation: to support and build Australia's workforce diversity; (3) Learning and teaching: to support development of capabilities in teaching and assessment; and (4) Place and role of VET (including institutions): to enhance productivity and drive new value-added products and services in Australia's vocational education and training (VET) system. Following Highlights for 2014 by C. Fowler, this paper presents the following summaries: (1) 22nd National Vocational Education and Training Research Conference "No Frills": refereed papers (Laura O'Connor, Ed.); (2) A differentiated model for tertiary education: past ideas, contemporary policy and future possibilities (Francesca Beddie); (3) An exploration of labour mobility in mining and construction: who moves and why (Georgina Atkinson and Jo Hargreaves); (4) Are neighbourhood characteristics important in predicting the post-school destinations of young Australians? (David W. Johnston, Wang-Sheng Lee, Chandra Shah, Michael A. Shields, and Jean Spinks); (5) Disadvantaged learners and VET to higher education transitions (Tabatha Griffin); (6) Does scored VET in Schools help or hinder access to higher education in Victoria? (Cain Polidano, Domenico Tabasso, and Rong Zhang); (7) Early impacts of the Victorian Training Guarantee on VET enrolments and graduate outcomes (Felix Leung, Duncan McVicar, Cain Polidano, and Rong Zhang); (8) Economic vulnerability in Australia, 2002-12: an employment perspective (Michelle Circelli and John Stanwick); (9) Entry to vocations: building the foundations for successful transitions (Kira Clarke); (10) Gendered pathways into the post-secondary study of science (Joanna Sikora); (11) Incentives for relocating to regional Australia: estimates using a choice experiment (Aaron Nicholas and Chandra Shah); (12) Intergenerational mobility: new evidence from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (Gerry Redmond, Melissa Wong, Bruce Bradbury, and Ilan Katz); (13) Interpreting competencies in Australian vocational education and training: practices and issues (Steven Hodge); (14) The labour force participation of Australian mature-aged men: the role of spousal participation (Rong Zhu); (15) Measuring VET participation by socioeconomic status: an examination of the robustness of ABS SEIFA measures over time (Patrick Lim and Tom Karmel); (16) Qualification utilisation: occupational outcomes -- overview (Bridget Wibrow); (17) Quality assessments: practice and perspectives (Josie Misko, Sian Halliday-Wynes, John Stanwick, and Sinan Gemici); (18) Refining models and approaches in continuing education and training (Stephen Billett, Sarojni Choy, Darryl Dymock, Ray Smith, Ann Kelly, Mark Tyler, Amanda Henderson, Jason Lewis, and Fred Beven); (19) Transitioning from vocational education and training to university: strengthening information literacy through collaboration (Sonia White); (20) Understanding the non-completion of apprentices (Alice Bednarz); (21) Does financial stress impact on young people in tertiary study? (Sian Halliday-Wynes and Nhi Nguyen); (22) Do schools influence student engagement in the high school years? (Sinan Gemici and Tham Lu); (23) Educational outcomes: the impact of aspirations and the role of student background characteristics (Jacqueline Homel and Chris Ryan); (24) The factors affecting the educational and occupational aspirations of young Australians (Sinan Gemici, Alice Bednarz, Tom Karmel, and Patrick Lim); (25) The impact of increasing university participation on the pool of apprentices (Tom Karmel, David Roberts, and Patrick Lim); (26) The contribution of education to economic growth in Australia, 1997-2009 (Tom Karmel); and (27) Readiness to meet demand for skills: a study of five growth industries (Francesca Beddie, Mette Creaser, Jo Hargreaves, and Adrian Ong). Contains an author index.
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- 2015
27. Should All Student Loan Payments Be Income-Driven? Trade-Offs and Challenges. White Paper
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Institute for College Access & Success, Asher, Lauren, Cheng, Diane, and Thompson, Jessica
- Abstract
This white paper analyzes the potential effects of requiring income-driven repayment for all federal loans as well as relying on paycheck withholding for loan payments, with particular attention to the implications for low-income students and families. The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) also examines the relevance and evolution of mandatory IDR ["income-driven repayment"] systems in Australia and the United Kingdom, and the paper includes specific recommendations to streamline and improve student loan repayment options in the United States. Two appendices are included: (1) Citation List of Figure 2: "Key Comparisons of IDR Systems and Context: U.S., U.K., and Australia"; and (2) Borrower Example Details.
- Published
- 2014
28. 'I'm Happy, and I'm Passing. That's All That Matters!': Exploring Discourses of University Academic Success through Linguistic Analysis
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Delahunty, Janine and O'Shea, Sarah
- Abstract
'Student success' is a key driver in higher education policy and funding. Institutions often adopt a particular lens of success, emphasising 'retention and completion', 'high grades', 'employability after graduation' discourses, which place high value on human capital or fiscal outcomes. We explored how students themselves articulated notions of success to understand how these meanings aligned with the implicit value system perpetuated by neoliberal higher education systems. Qualitative data collected from 240 survey responses in the first phase of a study, were analysed using "Appraisal," a linguistic framework to systematically categorise evaluative language choices. This article focuses on questions eliciting students' articulations of success. Neoliberal discourses were challenged by these students, who were first-in-family at university, with success expressed in a personal and generational sense rather than solely meritocratic terms.
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- 2019
- Full Text
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29. Forms of Capital and Agency as Mediations in Negotiating Employability of International Graduate Migrants
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Pham, Thanh, Tomlinson, Michael, and Thompson, Chris
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This study deployed a qualitative approach to explore an alternative perspective regarding graduate migrants' employability. Twenty graduate migrants in Australia participated in in-depth interviews. Findings revealed graduate migrants faced various challenges in the target labour market, and to successfully secure employment it was important for them to develop key forms of capital -- i.e., excellent technical knowledge, relationships with 'significant others', strong career identity and psychological resilience, and exercise agency in interlinking these capitals so that they could make use of their strengths and coat weaknesses. Results from the study imply that managing, teaching, and professional staff members should collaborate closely to develop well-rounded programmes to sufficiently equip international students with multidimensional resources.
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- 2019
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30. Potential Factors Influencing Indigenous Education Participation and Achievement. Research Report
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National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Biddle, Nicholas, and Cameron, Timothy
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This report examines two sets of issues, the first being whether Indigenous Australians obtain a lower return on investment in education and training than other Australians. If they do, then this would partly explain why, in general, Indigenous participation in education and training is relatively low. The second issue is whether Indigenous participation is different once background characteristics--such as remoteness--are taken into account. To investigate these questions, the research uses previous research and a number of datasets: the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, the Census of Population and Housing, the Australian Early Development Index and the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth. The overall message is that, on the whole, Indigenous Australians have a positive return from education and training. Therefore it can be concluded that differential returns are not especially important in understanding differences in participation. The authors also find that, almost universally, background characteristics (including academic achievement at an earlier age) do not explain differential participation. Differences appear at an early age and then compound through the schooling system. (Contains 3 footnotes.)
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- 2012
31. Research Messages 2011
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National Centre for Vocational Education Research and National Centre for Vocational Education Research
- Abstract
"Research messages 2011" is a collection of summaries of research projects published by National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) in 2011. The publication also has an overview essay that captures the themes and highlights from the research for the year, including: (1) the initial education and training of young people and their pathways to employment; (2) apprenticeships and traineeships, with a particular focus on completions; (3) the ongoing education and training of the learner groups--namely older workers, people with a disability, low paid workers and the unemployed; (4) trends in the labour market, including labour mobility, skills mismatch and skills shortages; (5) the role of vocational education and training (VET) in innovation and workforce development; and (6) methodological and measurement issues. This paper presents the following summaries: (1) Highlights for 2011 (Georgina Atkinson); (2) As clear as mud: defining vocational education and training (Tom Karmel); (3) The attitudes of people with a disability to undertaking VET training (Lisa Nechvoglod and Tabatha Griffin); (4) Attrition in the trades (Tom Karmel, Patrick Lim and Josie Misko); (5) Building innovation capacity: the role of human capital formation in enterprises--a review of the literature (Andrew Smith, Jerry Courvisanos, Jacqueline Tuck and Steven McEachern); (6) Building the foundations: outcomes from the adult language, literacy and numeracy search conference (National Centre for Vocational Education Research); (7) The challenge of measurement: statistics for planning human resource development (Tom Karmel); (8) Differing skill requirements across countries and over time (Chris Ryan and Mathias Sinning); (9) Does changing your job leave you better off? A study of labour mobility in Australia, 2002 to 2008 (Ian Watson); (10) Does combining school and work affect school and post-school outcomes? (Alison Anlezark and Patrick Lim); (11) Education and training and the avoidance of financial disadvantage (Gary N. Marks); (12) Effect of the downturn on apprentices and trainees (Tom Karmel and Damian Oliver); (13) The effect of VET completion on the wages of young people (Nicolas Herault, Rezida Zakirova and Hielke Buddelmeyer); (14) Embedding learning from formal training into sustained behavioural change in the workplace (Cheryle Barker); (15) Enabling the effective take-up of e-learning by custodial officers (Malcolm Reason); (16) E-waste management in the VET environment (Virginia Waite); (17) Fostering enterprise: the innovation and skills nexus--research readings (Penelope Curtin, John Stanwick and Francesca Beddie); (18) From education to employment: how long does it take? (Darcy Fitzpatrick, Laurence Lester, Kostas Mavromaras, Sue Richardson and Yan Sun); (19) Getting tough on missing data: a boot camp for social science researchers (Sinan Gemici, Alice Bednarz and Patrick Lim); (20) How VET responds: a historical policy perspective (Robin Ryan); (21) The impact of wages and the likelihood of employment on the probability of completing an apprenticeship or traineeship (Tom Karmel and Peter Mlotkowski); (22) Individual-based completion rates for apprentices (Tom Karmel); (23) Initial training for VET teachers: a portrait within a larger canvas (Hugh Guthrie, Alicen McNaughton and Tracy Gamlin); (24) Juggling work, home and learning in low-paid occupations: a qualitative study (Barbara Pocock, Jude Elton, Deborah Green, Catherine McMahon and Suzanne Pritchard); (25) Lost talent? The occupational ambitions and attainments of young Australians (Joanna Sikora and Lawrence J. Saha); (26) Mapping adult literacy performance (Michelle Circelli, David D. Curtis and Kate Perkins); (27) The master artisan: a framework for master tradespeople in Australia (Karen O'Reilly-Briggs); (28) Measuring the quality of VET using the Student Outcomes Survey (Wang-Sheng Lee and Cain Polidano); (29) Measuring the socioeconomic status of Australian youth (Patrick Lim and Sinan Gemici); (30) The mobile worker: concepts, issues, implications (Richard Sweet); (31) Moving the fence posts: learning preferences of part-time agriculture students (Alan Woods); (32) Musing budding musos: the role of peer mentoring in learning to be a contemporary musician (Ross Stagg); (33) Older workers: research readings (Tabatha Griffin and Francesca Beddie); (34) Outcomes from combining work and tertiary study (Cain Polidano and Rezida Zakirova); (35) Outcomes of stakeholder consultations to identify the LSAY analytical program for 2011-13 (National Centre for Vocational Education Research); (36) Over-skilling and job satisfaction in the Australian labour force (Kostas Mavromaras, Seamus McGuinness, Sue Richardson, Peter Sloane and Zhang Wei); (37) Pathways: developing the skills of the Australian workforce (Hugh Guthrie, John Stanwick and Tom Karmel); (38) Plumbing, sustainability and training (Sian Halliday-Wynes and John Stanwick); (39) Pre-apprenticeship training activity (Paul Foley and Davinia Blomberg); (40) Pre-apprenticeships and their impact on apprenticeship completion and satisfaction (Tom Karmel and Damian Oliver); (41) Pre-vocational programs and their impact on traineeship completion and satisfaction (Damian Oliver and Tom Karmel); (42) Review of the Survey of Employer Use and Views of the VET System: outcomes from the discussion paper (National Centre for Vocational Education Research); (43) The role of VET in workforce development: a story of conflicting expectations (Tanya Bretherton); (44) The shifting demographics and lifelong learning (Tom Karmel); (45) Skill (mis-)matches and over-education of younger workers (Chris Ryan and Mathias Sinning); (46) Skill shortages in the trades during economic downturns (Damian Oliver); (47) Social capital and young people: do young people's networks improve their participation in education and training? (Ronnie Semo and Tom Karmel); (48) To gain, retain and retrain: the role of post-school education for people with a disability (Cain Polidano and Ha Vu); (49) Understanding and improving labour mobility: a scoping paper (John Buchanan, Susanna Baldwin and Sally Wright); (50) Understanding the psychological contract in apprenticeships and traineeships to improve retention (Erica Smith, Arlene Walker and Ros Brennan Kemmis); (51) Understanding the undertow: innovative responses to labour market disadvantage and VET (Tanya Bretherton); (52) VET and the diffusion and implementation of innovation in the mining, solar energy and computer games sectors (Robert Dalitz, Phillip Toner and Tim Turpin); (53) The vocational equivalent to Year 12 (Patrick Lim and Tom Karmel); (54) Vocational qualifications, employment status and income: 2006 census analysis (Anne Daly); (55) Weighting the LSAY Programme of International Student Assessment cohorts (Patrick Lim); (56) What is a practical, effective and sustainable approach to leadership development at the Canberra Institute of Technology? (Coralie Daniels); (57) Which paths work for which young people? (Tom Karmel and Shu-Hui Liu); (58) Work, life and VET participation amongst lower-paid workers (Barbara Pocock, Natalie Skinner, Catherine McMahon and Suzanne Pritchard); and (59) Year 12 completion and youth transitions (Chris Ryan). [For the previous edition, "Research Messages 2010," see ED517177.]
- Published
- 2012
32. Over-Education, Under-Education and Credentialism in the Australian Labour Market. NCVER Monograph Series 10/2012
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National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Dockery, Alfred Michael, and Miller, Paul W.
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It is well established that workers with more years of education earn higher wages. By establishing a reference or "required" level of education for a worker's occupation, it is possible to decompose an individual's actual level of education into years of required education and years of over-education or under-education relative to that occupational norm. A richer picture of wage determination can be gained by substituting these three terms for actual education in the standard Mincer wage equation. Relative to the standard estimates of returns from years of actual education, international and Australian studies using this "ORU model" ("over"-education, "required" education, "under"-education) typically find larger returns from years of required education and modest returns from years of over-education. Workers benefit from being employed in an occupation for which they are under-educated, because the positive effect of being in an occupation with a higher reference level of education outweighs the negative effect of their years of under-education. This report shows how the ORU model can be used to inform consideration of the wage implications of credentialism, defined as an increase over time in the education standards for specific jobs and which is not necessary for the effective achievement of tasks across positions in the labour market. Data from the 2006 Census of Population and Housing are used to establish the required (mean) level of education in each of 46 two-digit occupations for a sample of employees from waves 1 to 8 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. Both standard ordinary least squares (OLS) and panel data models show that the estimated return from years of required education exceeds the return from years of surplus education. This result is robust to the augmentation of the ORU model with variables for the occupation of employment, and to estimation on separate samples of males and females. The years of educational attainment attributable to credentialism are associated with an increase in the hourly wage of the same order of magnitude as the years of over-education in the standard ORU model. Under extreme versions of credentialism, where the level of education is used only to match individuals to jobs and where the skills that are valued in the labour market are only learned on the job, it would be expected that the credentialism wage effect would be zero. The fact that this return is not zero indicates that, even if the higher levels of schooling of our younger cohorts are not needed for them to be assigned to jobs, the skills learned at school are valued in the labour market. There are two key policy messages from this research. The first is that the additional years of schooling associated with credentialism are not wasted: these additional years appear to be linked to the development of skills that attract a reward of around 3-6%. This is comforting for advocates of the expansion of the education sector. Second, there are large gains that could be potentially achieved through a better matching of workers' actual educational attainment to job requirements. (Contains 14 tables, 1 figure, and 11 footnotes.)
- Published
- 2012
33. Building the Capacity to Innovate: The Role of Human Capital. Research Report
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National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Smith, Andrew, Courvisanos, Jerry, Tuck, Jacqueline, and McEachern, Steven
- Abstract
This report examines the link between human resource management practices and innovation. It is based on a conceptual framework in which "human resource stimuli measures"--work organisation, working time, areas of training and creativity--feed into innovative capacity or innovation. Of course, having innovative capacity does not necessarily mean that a firm will be innovative. One of the issues of this approach is that, while innovation can be directly observed, innovative capacity is a more abstract concept. The study comprises a survey of firms as well as some case studies, and the survey captures data on innovative capacity through a series of questions relating to a firm's perception of its capacity to innovate. Based on the survey data, the authors find that certain human resource practices do improve innovative capacity (or at least firms' prediction of their capacity) but they have a very weak link with innovation directly. Therefore appropriate human resources practices and the capacity to innovate can be thought of more as necessary conditions for innovation rather than as sufficient. This leads to thinking about the mediating factors that transform the capacity to innovate into innovation. The purpose of the case studies was to throw some light on these mediating factors. Key messages from this report include: (1) Human resource practices, creativity management and knowledge management impact on innovation indirectly through their effect on innovative capacity rather than impacting directly; (2) Three sets of management practices assist the development of innovative capacity: (a) people management; for example, practices such as team-based work organisation, support for training and flexible work practices; (b) the development of a learning culture; and (c) external linkages, especially with educational institutions; and (3) In the case studies the one factor that appears to assist innovative capacity translating to innovation is links with the tertiary education sector. Assistance from universities or the VET system can facilitate training and recruitment and the development of applied research to assist product innovation. (Contains 7 tables, 2 figures and 1 footnote.) [For "Building the Capacity to Innovate: The Role of Human Capital--Support Document," see ED529888.]
- Published
- 2012
34. Building the Capacity to Innovate: The Role of Human Capital--Support Document
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National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Smith, Andrew, Courvisanos, Jerry, Tuck, Jacqueline, and McEachern, Steven
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This document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report "Building the Capacity to Innovate: The Role of Human Capital," and is an added resource for further information. This document contains the following appendices: (1) Survey methodology; (2) Synopsis of the literature; (3) Interview questions; and (4) Survey questionnaire. (Contains 56 tables and 5 figures.) [For the full report, "Building the Capacity to Innovate: The Role of Human Capital. Research Report," see ED529887. ]
- Published
- 2012
35. Launching a Career or Reflecting on Life? Reasons, Issues and Outcomes for Candidates Undertaking PhD Studies Mid-Career or after Retirement Compared to the Traditional Early Career Pathway
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Stehlik, Tom
- Abstract
The Commonwealth government provides fee exemption for any Australian who undertakes a PhD. This policy is presumably based on the "clever country" assumption that an educated population will develop and contribute to social and economic capital. Enrolment numbers therefore continue to increase, and a PhD is no longer an elite qualification. In addition, the characteristics and demographics of PhD students are changing. In the School of Education, University of South Australia, a significant number of PhD students are not early career researchers or recent honours graduates, but mid-to-late-career education practitioners and retirees, and the majority are women. These mature-age and third-age candidates are undertaking doctoral research not to launch their career, but in most cases to reflect on it, with many experiencing transformative learning in the process. In this paper I will explore why people undertake a PhD later in life, what the learning process is like for them, what the outcomes are, and the benefits to society. (Contains 1 figure.)
- Published
- 2011
36. 'I Love to Teach but No Thank You!' Factors Responsible for the Demise of Teaching as a Profession: An Australian Perspective
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Naidu, Sham
- Abstract
Currently, the decline in teacher numbers has become an important topic for discussion in the field of teachers' work in Australia. The purpose of this article is to discuss current initiatives being implemented by both the Australian federal government and the South Australian state government to retain and attract prospective teachers and some of the postmodern trends influencing the nature of teachers' work. It begins by setting out the key initiatives being introduced. This is followed by a discussion of economic and political changes reshaping teaching as a profession. It is argued that teachers are increasingly subject to reformist policies as governments seek to enhance human capital in the face of globalized competition. Thus, it comes as no surprise that teaching as a profession is at an all-time low in Australia.
- Published
- 2011
37. How Do Marital Status and Gender Affect the PRR to a University Degree in Australia?
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Wright, Sarah
- Abstract
While Australian evidence suggests that the Private Rate of Return (PRR) to a university degree in Australia has gradually declined with increases in the cost of higher education, these studies have only measured the PRR for the average male and average female. This paper uses income data from the ABS Income and Housing Survey (2003-04) CURF to measure the impact of the 2005 increase in HECS fees on the PRR based on gender and marital status. This paper shows that the return to a university degree is largely affected by both gender and marital status and studies that measure the PRR to a university degree for single males and single females with no dependent children underestimate the PRR for most male graduates and overestimate the PRR of female graduates.
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- 2011
38. Globalisation and Chinese Knowledge Diaspora: An Australian Case Study
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Yang, Rui and Qiu, Fang-fang
- Abstract
In a context of intensified globalisation, knowledge diaspora as "trans-national human capital" have become increasingly valuable to society. With an awareness of a need for more empirical studies especially in Australia, this article concentrates on a group of academics who were working at a major university in Australia and came originally from the Chinese mainland. The study explores their life, work and international research collaborations, using a case study approach with semi-structured interviews as the data collection method. The study found that while globalisation shapes the work and the contributions to Australia, by academics from China, they exert their initiatives to respond to and further reshape globalisation. Equipped with their Chinese cultural and educational backgrounds, academic experience in the West, and active membership in the international knowledge system, the Chinese knowledge diaspora are a modern kind of cosmopolitan literati. They are aware of the impact of globalisation and contribute actively to higher education internationalisation in both Australia and China, have maintained their cultural identity and made good use of their Chinese educational background. Their international collaborations, however, are more likely to be with the scholars from Western countries due to some difficulties they have experienced in China and Australia, and to the current setup of the global knowledge system.
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- 2010
39. The Kuznets Curve of Education: A Global Perspective on Education Inequalities. CEE DP 116
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London School of Economics & Political Science, Centre for the Economics of Education, Morrison, Christian, and Murtin, Fabrice
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Education is recognized to be a key factor of economic development, not only giving access to technological progress as emphasized by the Schumpeterian growth theory, but also entailing numerous social externalities such as the demographic transition (Murtin, 2009) or democratization (Murtin and Wacziarg, 2010). If the evolution of world distributions of income and longevity over the last two centuries have been described by Bourguignon and Morrisson (2002), changes in the world distribution of education have remained unexplored until now, despite their major importance. How has global education inequality evolved over the twentieth century? How should it be measured? Up to now, existing studies on education inequality have had limited spatial and time coverage. For example, Castello and Domenech (2002) and Thomas et al. (2001) provide a descriptive analysis of years of schooling inequality for a broad panel of countries, but their study starts only in 1960. Also, they remain at the country level and do not consider the world distribution of years of schooling, which takes into account educational differences both within and between countries. In contrast, this paper depicts the world distribution of education over 140 years, improving and extending the database recently released by Morrisson and Murtin (2009), which focuses on average years of schooling. The authors provide both average years of schooling and the distribution of education as summarised up by four quantiles in each country. Importantly, this new database is cross-validated by historical data on illiteracy rates. Then, they describe average stocks of primary, secondary and tertiary schooling by region since 1870, and estimate world inequality in years of schooling, which has been dramatically reduced since 1870. Focusing on the measurement of education inequality, this paper raises an important methodological issue. The authors show that a substantial share of inequality in years of schooling can be mechanically explained by a single component of the distribution of education, namely the population that has not attended school, subsequently called the illiterate population. Actually, they find that the observed decrease in inequality in years of schooling over the XXth century is almost entirely explained by the decline in illiteracy. They believe that this result, derived both theoretically and empirically, could help to reconsider an empirical fact discussed in the literature on education inequality (see Berthelemy (2006)), namely the cross-country negative correlation between the average of and the inequality in years of schooling. This correlation mainly reflects the negative and mechanical correlation between average schooling and the illiteracy rate. In line with a recent macroeconomic literature (see for instance Hall and Jones (1999)), the authors then turn to human capital as defined by Mincer (1974), in order to confer a monetary dimension to education. They propose estimates of the world inequality in human capital, examining several definitions for human capital. They focus on one functional form in particular, which accounts for the existence of diminishing returns to schooling. It is the only one that can account for the cross-country negative correlation between Mincer returns to schooling and average years of schooling, as described by Psacharopoulos and Patrinos (2004). At the national level, they find that that human capital inequality within countries has increased then stabilized or even decreased in most regions of the world. When plotted against average years of schooling, human capital inequality within countries has clearly followed an inverted U-shape curve, namely a "Kuznets curve of education". At the global level, they also find that human capital inequality has increased from 1870 to approximatively 1970, then has decreased. They interpret these findings as a consequence of mass education and the existence of diminishing returns to schooling. (Contains 6 tables, 6 figures and 14 footnotes.)
- Published
- 2010
40. Equity and Diversity in Tertiary Institutions
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Tower, Greg, Plummer, Julie, Ridgewell, Brenda, Goforth, Emily, and Tower, Spence
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The results reveal that tertiary institutions have low levels of EEO reporting especially for sexual orientation and religious issues. More mandatory state-based legislation may be needed.
- Published
- 2010
41. Response to the DIAC Discussion Paper: 'Review of the General Skilled Migration Points Test'. Go8 Position Paper
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Group of Eight (Australia)
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The Group of Eight (Go8) applauds the government's intention to comprehensively reform the skilled migration program, and it welcomes the opportunity to submit this response to the General Skilled Migration (GSM) Points Test Discussion Paper. The Go8 has argued for some time that it is inappropriate to link international education to the skilled migration program. Educational decisions should not be driven by the availability of extra points for studying in Australia nor for undertaking courses with narrowly defined occupational ends. Rather, the level and quality of educational qualifications should underpin the new skilled migration program so that the government, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, can better meet Australia's short, medium and long term human capital needs. This paper provides the Go8's response to specific questions raised by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) in its 15 February paper.
- Published
- 2010
42. What Are the Alternatives to Student Loans in Higher Education Funding?
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Stokes, Anthony and Wright, Sarah
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In a period of student loan scandals and U.S. financial market instability impacting on the cost and availability of student loans, this paper looks at alternative models of higher education funding. In this context, it also considers the level of financial support that the government should provide to higher education.
- Published
- 2010
43. International Student Flows for University Education and the Bilateral Market Integration of Australia
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Min, Byung S. and Falvey, Rod
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Study at a foreign university can be an important way of developing international human capital. We investigate factors affecting international student flows for higher education and their consequences for bilateral market integration in Australia. Estimation results demonstrate that income, cost competitiveness, migration network effects and other education pathways increase the demand for tertiary education. Our results show that university study, inter alia, is an important determinant of bilateral trade between Australia and the student's home country.
- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
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44. Deepening Understandings of Bourdieu's Academic and Intellectual Capital through a Study of Academic Voice within Academic Governance
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Rowlands, Julie
- Abstract
This article presents comparative empirical data from England, the US and Australia on academic boards (also known as faculty senates or academic senates) to highlight ways in which changes within contemporary academic governance effect a diminution of academic voice within decision-making about and that affects teaching and research. Drawing on Bourdieu's notions of academic and intellectual capital, it highlights the limited capacity of analyses of university power relations that are predicated upon managerial and collegial governance as being at opposite ends of a spectrum to account for the multiple academics who have taken up line management or executive-level roles, and the many practising academics who undertake quite substantial administrative roles alongside their teaching and research. The article concludes by arguing that a more nuanced reading of Bourdieu's academic and intellectual capital, combined with his concept of the divided habitus, offers significant potential for a deeper understanding of the complex ways in which the asymmetries of power within universities are developed and maintained. In turn, this opens the way to transformational academic governance practices that could reassert academic voice within decision-making about academic matters.
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- 2018
- Full Text
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45. Rethinking Graduate Employability: The Role of Capital, Individual Attributes and Context
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Clarke, Marilyn
- Abstract
Graduate employability has become a key driver for universities in Australia and the UK. In response to increasing pressure from governments and employer groups, universities have adopted a range of generic skill-based learning outcomes which, when embedded into degree programs, are expected to increase graduate employability and therefore improve graduate employment outcomes. In addition, many universities are now including internships, work placements and international study in their programmes with the aim of enhancing graduate employment prospects. This somewhat instrumental approach to graduate employability does not, however, take into account other critical factors. Drawing on the broader employability literature, this article develops a framework that incorporates six key dimensions -- human capital, social capital, individual attributes, individual behaviours, perceived employability and labour market factors -- to help explore and explain the concept of graduate employability.
- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
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46. A Success/Failure Paradox: Reflection on a University-Community Engagement in Australia
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Murphy, Daniel and McGrath, Dianne
- Abstract
There has been an increasing interest within the academic literature on the role played by Higher Education Institutions in the social and economic development of their communities. The Australia Government has recently released its National Science and Innovation Agenda (NISA) which is designed to incentivise university-community research partnerships. In this article, the identified lack of Australian university-community engagement will be problematised through the experience of academics who undertook such an engagement in a regional university setting. A completed research project is used as a lens through which institutional factors impacting on collaborative projects between universities and their communities are identified. The difficulties of university-community engagement are unpacked and problematised so that the various forces contributing to the shortage of university-community partnerships can be better identified and understood. The unitary manner in which university-community research is to be reported under NISA is highlighted as a key barrier to regional research partnerships.
- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
47. Returns to Higher Education in the Very Long-Run: 1870-2010
- Author
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Hailemariam, Abebe
- Abstract
This article examines the long-run effect of higher education, measured in average years of tertiary schooling, on the level and growth rate of national per capita income. It uses an improved dataset on educational attainments which not only reduces measurement error but also overcomes data comparability issues and allows us to estimate the long-run effect of human capital through higher education on economic development. Using unique long panel data for 36 advanced and emerging economies spanning over the period 1870-2010, we find that higher education has a positive and significant effect on the level and the growth rate of national per capita income. Specifically, our empirical results indicate that a 1% increase in educational attainment at higher education level would raise the growth rate of per capita income by about 0.01% to 0.02% over a five-year period. That is, at the sample mean, an increase in average tertiary education by one year would raise output growth by about 6% to 11% in five years. We find that the returns to female education are lower than the returns to male education at tertiary schooling levels. Our results are robust to alternative specifications.
- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
48. Building Teacher Capital in Pre-Service Teachers: Reflections on a New Teacher-Education Initiative
- Author
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Ferfolja, Tania
- Abstract
This discussion considers a new pre-service teacher education initiative at the University of Western Sydney, called "Classmates". "Classmates" aims to prepare pre-service teachers to work in diverse and challenging schools. The paper argues that the neo-liberal industrial model of mass teacher education may be limited in its capacity to adequately prepare pre-service teachers for the difficulties they may encounter in a society where sociocultural inequality is growing. It points out that pre-service teacher-education needs to build "teacher capital" to better prepare graduates and to buffer the transition from tertiary student to beginning teacher. "Classmates" offers one way that this may be achieved. Findings from the "Classmates" research clearly point to the pre-service teachers' acquisition of several forms of teacher capital, identified as (i) knowledge about students; (ii) knowledge about teaching and the institution; and (iii) knowledge about professional networks. The continuous "Classmates" practicum was perceived to make a major contribution to the development of this capital.
- Published
- 2008
49. Australian Directions in Indigenous Education 2005-2008
- Author
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Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) (Australia)
- Abstract
The educational outcomes of Indigenous Australians have improved over recent decades. This is evident across a range of indicators on the enrolment, participation and achievement of Indigenous students in the early childhood education and school sectors. There has also been increased representation of Indigenous students in New Apprenticeships and strong growth of Indigenous enrolments in the vocational education and training (VET) and tertiary sectors. Despite some gains, Indigenous Australians are yet to achieve equitable outcomes. Many Indigenous students continue to "drop out" at or before Year 10 and far too few remain at school to complete Year 11 and Year 12, or its vocational equivalent. Of those who do complete Year 12, few obtain the scores needed to gain entry into university. Most Indigenous students, regardless of their completion year, leave school poorly prepared relative to their non-Indigenous counterparts. These outcomes limit the post-school options and life choices of Indigenous students, perpetuating intergenerational cycles of social and economic disadvantage. The Indigenous population is young: 40 percent of Indigenous people are under 15-years-of-age compared with 20 percent of the non-Indigenous population. The Indigenous population is also growing at twice the annual rate projected for the rest of the population. Demographic forces, coupled with the raising of the school leaving age in some jurisdictions, mean that Indigenous students represent an increasing proportion of all students, particularly in government schools. There is therefore an urgent need to challenge the prevailing view that disparity in the educational outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is "normal" and that incremental gains are acceptable. Social polarisation arising from globalisation and unequal opportunities to join the "knowledge economies" further underlines the critical importance of addressing the disparity in educational outcomes. This paper provides recommendations to focus national effort over the 2005-2008 quadrennium. The recommendations seek to accelerate the pace of change by "engaging" Indigenous children and young people in learning. They are systemic as engagement will not occur, or be sustained, unless Indigenous education is "built in" to become an integral part of core business. The recommendations align with five domains in which engagement is critical: early childhood education; school and community educational partnerships; school leadership; quality teaching; and pathways to training, employment and higher education. They are informed by system knowledge of good practice and the extensive body of research on Indigenous education. They foster government to government collaboration and can be adapted by jurisdictions and schools to suit local contexts. Implementation will provide systems and schools with the capacity to engage Indigenous children and young people in learning. It will also assist jurisdictions to meet proposed education and training outcomes of the national reform agenda (human capital stream) agreed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in February 2006 and address key indicators of Indigenous disadvantage endorsed by COAG in 2003. (Contains 12 endnotes.)
- Published
- 2006
50. View, 2000: Commentaries on Adult Learning.
- Author
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Adult Learning Australia, Inc., Jamison.
- Abstract
This booklet is compiled from all the Adult Learning Australia (ALA) Commentaries produced in 2000. Emailed to ALA members each week, ALA Commentaries are written by people in the field of adult learning in the broadest sense, usually in Australia, sometimes overseas, and designed to stimulate discussion. ALA hosts an online discussion forum about them that anyone with an email address can join. The 34 Commentaries cover these topics: social capital, learning and teaching contexts, the system, technologies for learning, and learning towns and cities. Titles include "Telling Tales Out of Class" (Falzon); "Earning Interest on Social Capital" (McIntyre); "Learning Social Literacy" (Cox); "Human Capital and Social Capital" (Falk); "Lifelong Learning, Social Capital, and Capacity Building" (Seddon); "My Arms Ache" (Stalker); "Teachers on Screen" (Brown); "Confident Engagement in Other Cultures" (Schofield); "Eating, Drinking, and Adult Learning" (Tuckett); "Sunday on the Bridge" (Della); "Adult Educator in the Grains Industry" (Crombie); "Solidarity Forever" (Foley); "Community in Education; Education in Community" (Lawrence); "(Re)presentations" (Butler); "Heroes and Villains" (Burchill); "Transforming Students into Self-Directed, Independent Adult Learners" (Carbone); "Limits of Parliamentary Democracy" (Sutherland); "Finding Our Many Founders" (Pamphilon); "Is a Good Adult Education Worker a Christian?" (Childs); "When Will It All End? Restructuring Higher Education" (Wagner); "Coming to Grips with ANTA's Lifelong Learning Strategy" (Sanguinetti); "Librarians in the Information Revolution" (Murphy, Greenshields); "ACE Is Not Education" (Brown); "Public or Community Education?" (Flowers); "'It's Life Jim, But Not As We Know It'" (Lucardie); "Olympic Dream, Education Nightmare" (Kell); "Putting the Political Back into Community Education" (Law); "Being Critical" (Brown); "Business of Education" (Traynor); "Demolishing the Silos" (Heriot); "Hidden Assets in Community Radio" (Page); "Radio Through the Internet for ALW" (Ryan); "Challenge of Change" (Candy); and "Learning Communities" (Latham). (YLB)
- Published
- 2001
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