The universities of Catalonia are consolidated institutions of employability-oriented teaching that offer a range of quality degree programmes which equip people with the skills and qualifications required by the labour market.
This is the main conclusion drawn from the last two seminars of the AQU Catalunya “Employability and university education” series, which reflected on the suitability of university degree programmes in the fields of Economics and Business (which includes bachelor’s degrees in the Economics and Business Administration and Management subfields) and Psychology in terms of their ability to provide graduates with the tools that will enable them to perform and grow as professionals.
This series is also the culmination of the ambitious AQU Catalunya “Employers” project, launched in 2014 with the aim of including the voice of the organisations and companies that hire recent graduates in the data system compiled by the Agency. In line with AQU Catalunya’s strategic courses of action, these two seminars helped gain access to quantitative and qualitative data that, in an integrated manner, allowed proposals to be put forth for improving the quality of the bachelor’s degrees meticulously analysed. In this respect, both events included a presentation by an academic expert of international renown, who enriched the debate with information on trends in the professions associated with these degree programmes and how this might fit into university learning. AQU Catalunya staff then gave a presentation about supply and demand, satisfaction, employment outcomes and employers’ opinions of Economics and Business and Psychology graduates. Finally, a round table comprising academic experts, employers and alumni was responsible for integrating the information – the perspective of the international speaker, AQU Catalunya data and the experience of the round table participants themselves – in order to produce proposals for improving the degree programmes.
Although the data presented show that graduates of these degree programmes are satisfied with the education received, enjoy good employment outcomes and contribute positively to their jobs, the seminar allowed points for improvement to be identified, a necessary condition to continually progress towards excellence. For example, with regard to graduates’ satisfaction with external placements in both fields, they tend to disagree more with the statement “external work placements have enabled me to apply the knowledge acquired through the programme” than graduates of the Catalan Higher Education System (SUC) as a whole.
In relation to the employers’ opinion, it was pointed out that companies and institutions recruiting recent graduates in Business and Economics see room for improvement in the ability to set objectives and priorities, in being results-oriented and in the ability to ascertain clients’ needs and wishes. Regarding the companies that hire graduates in Psychology, they underlined interpersonal and communication skills, detecting people’s needs and intervening with people in different areas (clinical, educational, labour, legal, etc.) as skills that need to be strengthened.
The employment outcomes – in terms of salary, suitability and type of contract – of Psychology graduates were also found to be below the average for SUC degree programmes as a whole.
Bearing in mind that universities have a limited capacity to influence the economic situation and the structure of the labour market – fundamental aspects when it comes to understanding graduates’ employability –, participants in the two events proposed a set of suggestions for improvement that could fall within universities’ teaching and institutional activity. Some of these proposals are as follows:
