Graduate Employment and Higher Education in Asia

Introduction

In recent years, employment for graduates of institutions of higher education has again become a controversial issue. Countries that have experienced recent rapid expansion of higher education share widespread concerns that graduates face substantial difficulties in the job search, have to accept unfavorable early employment, and even might be “lost generations” in the long run. Some observers claim that there is an incongruity between graduates’ competencies and actual work requirements. This state of affairs calls for analysis and a reconsideration of the quantitative-structural relations between higher education and the world of work. How do student numbers and the composition of the student body develop according to fields of study, types of study programs and institutions, etc., and how should they actually develop? It is also necessary to reconsider what study programs and other support institutions of higher education lend to their students. To what extent do institutions of higher education foster competencies relevant for employment and work, to what extent should these institutions care about fostering more “employable” competencies, and to what extent do they and should they provide services that help students in the process of transition to employment?

This special issue offers a broad discussion on the subject of changing graduate employment and work and the role played by higher education in this respect. It addresses global discourses but focuses on developments and discourses in Asia. Drawing from original research and shared ideas, this discussion attempts to answer the following questions: To what extent is the expansion of higher education accompanied by increasing early employment or other problems? What do we know about the later career stages of graduates facing problems in the job search? What are the relationships between curricula, competencies, and actual subsequent work? What is the role of higher education as regards curricular relevance and the functioning of the employment transition process? Are some groups of students exposed to more serious problems than others? What variations of developments and respective policies do we observe across Asian countries? Each paper in this special issue makes an original contribution to understanding the situation as well as screening respective policies.

The contributions of this special issue are based on presentations at the 4th Higher Education Research Association (hera) Conference, which took place May 27-28, 2016, in Hong Kong. The conference had the theme of “Equity, Employment, and Mobility in Asian Higher Education” and was co-organized by hera, a membership organization of higher education researchers located in East Asian and Southeast Asian countries, and the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong. This particular event brought together global scholars in higher education and noted researchers in the Asia-Pacific region, including scholars and researchers from Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Russia. The keynote speakers were Professor Kai-ming Cheng (whose speech was titled, “Do We Know What We Are Facing? Higher Education in a Changed Society”) and Professor Ulrich Teichler (whose speech was titled, “The Professional Relevance of Study on the Way towards a Highly Educated Society”). The conference panel topics included World Class Universities in Asia, Governance of Global Excellence Initiatives, Internationalization and Regionalization, Academic Mobility, Student Mobility, Employment, and Access and Equity in Higher Education. After the conference, the guest editors selected six articles addressing issues of graduate employment in Asia and organized this special issue.

Contributions to the Special Issue

This special issue begins with a comprehensive overview of graduate employment issues from a global perspective. Ulrich Teichler describes the relationship between higher education and the world of work based on a historical and comparative analysis in his article, “The Professional Relevance of Study: Disputes, Widely Shared Approaches, and Future Perspectives.” Teichler explains how different higher education systems have been using (and sometimes misusing) certain terms in regard to higher education and the world of work, including “employability.” Teichler does a critical analysis of the nature of the employability concept, which is one of the most popular terms regarding the world of work among university graduates in recent years across the world, and points out how blurred this concept is in many ways. Teichler does this by comparing the relationships between study, employment, and work, using examples from European countries and highlighting the role of the employability concept in the European community and in higher education policies. Teichler presents not only common and varied elements in European employability discourse but also competencies and job requirements across European countries. Teichler also points out that most discourses on higher education and the world of work have heavily focused on quantitative-structural relationships, such as employment rates or wages of graduates. Teichler warns that the misuse of the employability concept along with too much emphasis on quantitative discourse will neglect broader teaching and learning functions in higher education and discourage innovation and creativity. In addition to this criticism, Teichler calls for in-depth critical reviews of graduate employment issues in different parts of the world, thereby considering different economic and social conditions and different traditions as far as the professional relevance of work is concerned. Teichler’s article presents significant implications for Asian higher education, which recently have predominantly emphasized the employment success of graduates as the key objective of higher education and often have blamed universities for not focusing almost exclusively on job skills that employers require. The author points out that a comprehensive view on the relationships between higher education and the world of work calls for a wider forward-looking concept of professional relevance.

The following articles in this special issue cover various themes in graduate employment and higher education in Asia, including macrolevel comparative analyses across countries, national- and institutional-level policies, and learning experiences inside and outside the classroom that contribute to graduates’ employment. These articles are written by researchers from various countries who are knowledgeable of their own national higher education system and who also have comparative perspectives. The authors of each article present current issues of graduate employment, mainly based on empirical data analysis, and provide contextual background for each national higher education system. The articles show different backgrounds and major issues in national and international contexts.

Cheng-Cheng Yang and Sheng-Ju Chan apply a longitudinal and comparative analysis to examine whether the expansion of higher education relates to unemployment rates in Asia. The authors take examples from Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, which are economically advanced and have experienced a rapid expansion of higher education in Asia. The authors explain the common drivers of higher education expansion in these three places, including changes in economic structures and cultural emphasis on education. According to Cheng-Cheng Yang and Sheng-Ju Chan, however, the traditional belief that higher education degrees enhance individuals’ success and a country’s economic growth is vulnerable, since higher education enrollment is becoming too high in some countries. Based on Organization Economic Cooperation and Development (oecd) data analysis, the authors’ empirical data show that the massification of higher education has mixed consequences as regards the overall unemployment rate, particularly when the unemployment rate is beyond 50 percent. The data show that the unemployment rate of persons with a higher education degree as compared to the unemployment rate of persons with only a secondary education has been strikingly different between the three countries (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) in recent years. Although this calls for a consideration of the differences between the conditions in each country, the authors also point out common phenomena in the countries under study. For instance, the authors use the term “squeeze effect” to explain the effect of “replacement”—upper secondary education degree holders’ replacement of tertiary education degree holders in the job market.

Gerard Postiglione and Ewan Wright focus on developing countries in Asia and present comparative study results regarding the alignment of higher education and the workplace. The authors identify economic conditions in Asia partly as developed, partly as emerging, and partly as developing and consider it necessary that universities shape their learning environments to align with needs deriving from the stage of economic development. The authors particularly emphasize different needs and challenges as well as different strategic missions as regards sectors of education, for example, advanced study programs in universities, lower tier higher education or tertiary education institutions, and technical and vocational education. The authors use examples from Mongolia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam and explain how these countries’ economic structures seem to be linked to their structures of vocational and higher education systems, highlighting how graduates’ employment by educational sector, employment conditions, and occupational premiums vary. The authors call for regional collaboration and public-private partnerships in this region to enhance the conditions of both higher education and the workplace. They argue this goal can be achieved through an emphasis on external efficiency and accountability.

Loke Hoe Yeong and S. Gopinathan show that the Singaporean government has played a strong guiding role in shaping the quantitative and structural developments of education in accordance with the presumed needs of the employment system. This process has led to lower participation rates in higher education than in some other countries of the Asian region as well as the establishment of a strong sector of vocational training, which reflects prior experiences and developments in Germany and Switzerland. The authors describe these developments in Singapore in comparison to other Asian countries, such as South Korea and Taiwan, notably addressing recent government policies. One new policy, which is called SkillsFuture, allows for a substantial increase in enrollment in higher education but calls for the preservation of a relatively close link between curricula, desired competencies, and likely future work tasks in Singapore’s economy. The authors pay attention to this policy’s implementation strategies, particularly at the most prestigious universities in Singapore, and call for a critical review of these implementation processes.

The above first three articles address a broad range of linkages between higher education and the world of work. In contrast, the remaining two articles focus on higher education institutions’ measures for shaping students’ competencies. One article primarily addresses educational policies and their rationales, and the other one measures the professional impact of such policies.

Akira Arimoto addresses students’ learning experiences in higher education. He explains the recent policy in Japan of strengthening “active learning.” After a detailed account of this policy and its historical origin in the United States, Arimoto presents the results of a survey of vice presidents and persons in similar positions at Japanese universities. The survey shows substantial differences in how academics have perceived the importance of active learning, how they practice, and what challenges they have encountered in implementing these new learning approaches. In summing up his observations, Arimoto points out that the importance of active learning is widely accepted, but not actively implemented. He notes barriers in the form of the overall small amount of time Japanese students spend on studying, and he calls for various curricular and institutional measures to strength active learning.

Jisun Jung and Soo Jeung Lee address students’ learning experiences outside the classroom in South Korea and the professional impact of these experiences. The authors focus on internships and explain the history and different types of this learning experience in the Korean context. They show how internships are customary according to academic majors and types of institutions, and they point out the extent to which internships are optional and mandatory. Finally, the authors analyze available data on the professional impact of internships in terms of the duration of job searches, wages, and job satisfaction. They conclude that internship experience overall has beneficial professional impacts on the areas examined, that is, shortened job searches, increased income, and higher job satisfaction. However, such results do not consistently occur across different fields of study, institutional characteristics, occupational areas, and work situations.