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Globally, vocational education and training (VET) is considered important for ensuring the supply of skilled labour to the economy and economic competitiveness but also for helping the next generation with the transition to working life and integration into society. However, despite this importance, there are no international comparative studies on the effectiveness of the very different VET systems. In March 2024, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the 'Analytical and Assessment Framework' for PISA-VET, an international study on professional competencies and employability skills in VET. In this paper, some of the lead experts that contributed to the framework provide an outline of the aims of the initiative, the target groups, the assessment approaches as well as strength and weaknesses to stimulate discussion in the scientific community. VISA-VET aims to deliver comprehensive data, inform decision making, facilitate peer learning between countries, and promote the image of VET, in general. Target populations are learners toward the end of their VET programmes in the occupational areas of automotive technicians, electricians, business and administration, health care, or tourism and hospitality. Assessment approaches to domain-specific professional skills are simulation-based questions, digital simulations, and live or recorded demonstrations. The professional skills assessments are expanded by the assessment of employability skills and comprehensive data collections on national contextual and system-level factors. This paper discusses the selection and breakdown of occupational areas, the various assessment approaches and possible supplementary studies. Its overall aim is to initiate a broader discussion in the scientific community about the design of and expected insights from PISA-VET. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student work is becoming more prevalent throughout the world. More students are not only working but doing more hours per week, which very likely affects their academic performance. This paper provides a systematic literature review (SLR) of 347 papers, focusing on the: indicators of academic performance, relation between student part-time work and academic performance, and drivers of students' decision to work. Researchers note both positive and negative relations between student work and academic performance, with the positive connection less reported. The positive relation primarily involves students' improved ability to link theory with practice, while the negative impact of work on academic success is associated with more time devoted to work. The common tangible key driver of students' decision to work is meeting financial needs, and the intangible drivers include gaining work experience and developing practical skills. This paper's contributions lie in systematising positive and negative impacts of student work on academic performance and providing a better understanding of the drivers of students' work engagement. The results can ultimately serve as bases for further research on student work's impact on academic performance, as well as incentives for higher education institutions to rethink the possibilities of better integration of student work into curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings: Adolescents with parents who attain higher education levels, have highly skilled jobs, come from affluent families and have urban hukou are more likely to have higher employability skills than those with lower SES backgrounds. They also tend to improve their employability skills than those without these characteristics. Originality/value: The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates the importance and role of authentic assessments, that replicate industry practice, within Higher Education marketing programmes. We answer the call from employers, that students need to gain much-needed employability skills, and we illustrate how such assessments can be created to enable the development of employability skills. We provide an overview of four case studies, to illustrate different forms of authentic assessments, the theory which was used to underpin the designs, the skills developed during the assessments, and the outcomes of the assessments. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced a move to online assessments, it is timely that we reflect on the value of authentic assessments and adjust our practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve cost-effectiveness, the software development processes in the IT industries are changing rapidly. There is a gap in different processes in IT industries and engineering institutes due to a mismatch in industry expectations and academic practices. According to different survey reports, this gap is increasing significantly due to lack of domain knowledge, inabilities of adopting recent technologies, old curriculum contents, poor assessment methodologies, and old project development practices, etc. To make students industry-ready, it is necessary to inculcate recent software development processes in academics. Academic project is one of the important courses in an undergraduate program which inculcates industry required skills among the students to bridge the gap to a greater extent. In this work, the gap in academic software project development practices is identifies through feedback from industry experts, alumni, and previous three years' student projects. This paper presents Industry Oriented Software Engineering Practices (IOSEP) methodology to adopt the recent industry practices in academics for improving students' project quality. The proposed methodology is implemented for the third-year mini project and a final year capstone project for academic year 2018-19. The IOSEP methodology incorporates an agile model, industry coding practices, GitHub platform, modern tools and technologies, testing tools, real-time deployment and, LaTex for documentation. To analyse the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, a new skill-based assessment method and rubrics are designed. K-means clustering is used to analyse students' performance. The Elbow method and silhouette analysis are used to select the number of clusters. Results show that optimal cluster values are three and more than 38% of students are in excellent cluster. The post feedback analysis from faculties and students show that project quality improved compared to previous years on development time, coding practices, technology use, and technical report writing. Industry-sponsored projects, participation in project competitions, student paper publications, and placement statistics are improved than the previous three years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study aims to ratify skills necessary to bridge the gap between the existing models and emerging needs of a technology-enabled workspace; especially in the Indian context. Design/methodology/approach: This paper extends the ongoing debate on a relevant employability framework suitable both for higher education institutes and corporates. To remain resilient to future catastrophes similar to the ongoing pandemic, the relevancy of established employability skills to suit the changing scenario needs to be established. Findings: The partial least squares (PLS) technique has been used to present a framework confirming the importance of digital competencies, business fundamentals and behavioral skills. In-depth discussions with specialists ratified the proposed framework and recommended potential changes in curriculum and pedagogy. Research limitations/implications: This study validates an explicit and comprehensive employability skill framework and useful recommendations in teaching strategies, which may provide a broad skill base for graduates to prepare for the volatile business environment in the long run. Practical implications: The study has been able to put forth significant employability skills as deemed significant by the three stakeholders. This will provide guidance to higher educational institutions (HEIs) to come up with a broad skill-base for the fresh graduates and prepare them for the volatile business environment and encourage life-long learning to remain productive in the long run. Originality/value: The study is unique as it incorporates the perceived importance of the competencies assumed by each stakeholder, namely, employers, faculty and management graduates, which was unfortunately lacking in earlier researches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed to investigate one of the search’s core issues, ‘employability skills’, and their relationship. It also attempted to recognize the valuable contributions of writers, journals, governments, and institutions worldwide in pursuing employability skills. The quantitative study of bibliographic content is known as bibliometric analysis. Furthermore, it provides a broad view of a study subject that may be subdivided into publications, authors, and journals. This study offers a bibliometric summary of recent research on employability skills. Data was taken from the Scopus database between 2003 and 2022 and examined using VOSviewer software, open refine, tableau public, and Microsoft Excel. The data from the Scopus database are 1,070 documents. Researchers observed that researchers mainly focus on employability skills, higher education, engineering education, curricula, employment, and vocational education. Education and Training journal is the most appropriate journal for contributions, followed by Higher Education, Skills, and Work-based Learning journal, and then the Higher Education Research and Development journal. This study informs researchers by providing insights into basic background knowledge about employability skills for visual and quantitative research. Therefore, this method can observe the research gap in employability skills and more indepth academic discussions. The study demonstrates how employability skills research has arisen and progressed, as well as prospective future research agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]