Employability skills and the Knowledge Era
VIEWPOINT | Janet Hewson and Cliff Trood, Chief Education Officers, ICVET
Enterprises are increasingly asking for employability skills to meet the demands of an emerging knowledge-driven global economy. Educational institutions are being asked to respond.
The notion of Employability Skills has a long history in Australian Vocational Education. In 1992 the seven Meyer Key Competencies were identified as a set of skills that underpinned a capacity to adapt across work roles and contexts as well as enabling successful social engagement. These skills have also been variously described as ‘generic’ or ‘soft’ skills as they are not technical, but deal with personal skill and attributes.
More recently these key competencies have become embedded in the framework and language of Training Packages and units of competency. The expectation is that these ‘employability’ competencies will also be developed as technical competency is developed.
So what's new about Employability Skills?
Answer: Not a great deal except the emphasis they are now being given in VET
In 2002, the Business Council of Australia (BCA) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) produced the report “Employability Skills for the Future” on behalf of Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) and Australian National Training Authority (ANTA). The report put forward the notion of Employability Skills as the set of skills an employer would consider makes a good employee.
As a result Employability Skills have become a key component in the educational reform agenda being lead by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), the Federal Governments 2005 Skilling Australia’s Workforce ACT (SAW), Industry Associations, and in NSW, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART). As DEST points out in ‘Employability Skills: from framework to practice’ (2006),
“Employability Skills, in and of themselves, are not a new concept. They describe non-technical skills and competencies that have always been an important part of effective and successful participation in the workplace. Their explicit inclusion in Training Packages represents the progression of competency based training into a system which develops the full range of transferable skills, attitudes and behaviour required for successful participation in the workplace."
While there has been some debate as to the efficacy of Employability Skills as a new skill paradigm, the training reform agenda clearly positions responsiveness to industry at the centre of educational policy to meet the training needs of industry and enterprise in an increasingly competitive and global knowledge economy. Competing within this economy demands agility and flexibility within companies, and their employees, to take advantage of opportunities in the marketplace. Within this context it is not surprising that “Enterprises are increasingly asking for Employability Skills, and as a result learners and candidates for assessment need to know what these skills are and how to demonstrate them.” (DEST, 2006)
But many employees are also competing in a global skills market,
"Where knowledge (discipline specific) rapidly becomes obsolete [and] the ability to identify, access, network and communicate new information (employability) is vital for career success”, ( University of Southern Queensland, 2006)
Competing in this global skills market requires training, and successful training organisations will provide employability skills embedded into portable and flexible sets of skills that can be built upon over time. (Robb A, 2007). Employability skills therefore are an essential ingredient that supports employers and employees.
Resources
To assist your understanding of Employability Skills and where and how they fit into your practice, a compilation of documents, articles and websites has been drawn up to provide a guide to some of the questions surrounding Employability Skills and how they relate to the current reform agenda. This compilation of resources can be found here.
References
Employability skills - research papers & resources May 2007
DEST (2006), Employability skills from framework to practice,
Robb A, (2007) Training our workforce for tomorrow,
University of Southern Queensland (2007)