Media contributions
2Media contributions
Title Keynote speaker Country/Territory Australia Date 18/12/18 Description Title:
International graduates’ forms of capitals in managing their employability
Abstract:
Enhancing international students’ employability has become a focal point of higher education worldwide. The approach currently widely utilised by universities worldwide is the skills agenda which aims to equip graduates with attributes that are supposed to meet expectations of employers and industries. This approach has, however, been found to be ineffective in many aspects among which the biggest limitation is that it jams international graduates into a position where they have limited control over the state of the labour market. This presentation will discuss the capitals model as a new approach to employability of international students. This approach has been advocated by various key researchers in the field like Tomlinson (2017) and Watson (2013). The approach argues that in today’s competitive labour market, when a large number of graduates could obtain similar qualifications and employability training skills, what could make them stand out largely depends on how they activate their individual agency - the capacity that graduates use to convert some forms of capital into more valued forms of capital in the field (Watson, 2013).
The presentation will discuss strategies that graduates in various countries could deploy to make them ‘employable’. It will then draw on an empirical study conducted in Australia to illustrate how international graduates activated their agency to overcome their disadvantages to obtain employment. A conceptual model of international graduates’ capitals will be presented. The proposed conceptual model has two main implications. First, it alerts international graduates to significant capitals that they should be aware of and invest in building so that they could use on their transition to the labour market. Second, it sends a significant message to various stakeholders in higher education and policy makers to develop more rounded programmes that could prepare international students with multi-dimensional resources rather than only graduate attributes. Strategies reported in the presentation have a high application value to inform future graduates.Persons Thanh Pham Title Keynote speaker Degree of recognition International Media type Other Country/Territory Australia Date 18/12/18 Description Title:
International graduates’ forms of capitals in managing their employability
Abstract:
Enhancing international students’ employability has become a focal point of higher education worldwide. The approach currently widely utilised by universities worldwide is the skills agenda which aims to equip graduates with attributes that are supposed to meet expectations of employers and industries. This approach has, however, been found to be ineffective in many aspects among which the biggest limitation is that it jams international graduates into a position where they have limited control over the state of the labour market. This presentation will discuss the capitals model as a new approach to employability of international students. This approach has been advocated by various key researchers in the field like Tomlinson (2017) and Watson (2013). The approach argues that in today’s competitive labour market, when a large number of graduates could obtain similar qualifications and employability training skills, what could make them stand out largely depends on how they activate their individual agency - the capacity that graduates use to convert some forms of capital into more valued forms of capital in the field (Watson, 2013).
The presentation will discuss strategies that graduates in various countries could deploy to make them ‘employable’. It will then draw on an empirical study conducted in Australia to illustrate how international graduates activated their agency to overcome their disadvantages to obtain employment. A conceptual model of international graduates’ capitals will be presented. The proposed conceptual model has two main implications. First, it alerts international graduates to significant capitals that they should be aware of and invest in building so that they could use on their transition to the labour market. Second, it sends a significant message to various stakeholders in higher education and policy makers to develop more rounded programmes that could prepare international students with multi-dimensional resources rather than only graduate attributes. Strategies reported in the presentation have a high application value to inform future graduates.URL iacss-conf.org/site/page.aspx?pid=195&sid=6045&lang=en