Abstract
Over the past decades a continuous trend of expansion has led to the emergence of massified higher education systems that have tried to accommodate a growing diversity of students and demands through diverse institutional profiles and program supply. Recent studies have also pointed out to a growing diversity in the transitions and integration of those expanded cohorts of graduates in the labour market. Hence, it is relevant to assess to what extent the growing institutional and programme diversification may be associated with different profiles of graduates and the multidimensional set of acquired competencies throughout higher education. In this paper are analysed graduates’ perceptions about the competencies acquired through HE vis-à-vis those required by the labour market and search for differences in those perceptions according to type of institution (public and private, university and vocational) and type of degree. The analysis is based on the Portuguese experience that combines high labour market benefits for graduates with a rapid process of massification.
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Notes
In the sample there is a small share of graduates from polytechnics that were also awarded a university-type of degree (licenciatura).
In our analysis we have also compared graduates’ perceptions according to their scientific field, though the results have not added significantly to the analysis. Regarding the own-level competencies, it was possible to identify some statistically significant differences between graduates’ perceptions for some fields, though it was hard to establish a pattern regarding which scientific areas tended to show a higher or a lower level of competence (as this depended upon the competencies under analysis). In terms of required-level competencies, statistically significant differences were also detected for some of the competencies under analysis, though once again no pattern was identified in terms of the groups of graduates.
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Acknowledgements
This research has been funded by FCT – The Portuguese National Science Foundation through the projects PEst-OE/CED/UI0757/2013 and EXCL/IVC-PEC/0789/2012.
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Teixeira, P., Teixeira, P., Cardoso, S. et al. Graduates’ Perceptions about Labour Market Competencies: Does the Type of Institution and Programme Make a Difference?. High Educ Policy 29, 109–129 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2015.5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2015.5