Universities, government, media – we're all in thrall to the employability agenda, says Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, but do we need wider public debate about its origins and meaning?
Academic research, even the sort that looks at issues closest to 'real life', often remains distanced from public debate. Academic voices, in particular those stimulating critical reimagination, are hardly heard. But we need to encourage the media, and ultimately the public, to look more critically at employability – a theme that is discussed from a variety of angles, but is put under little critical scrutiny today.
The concept of employability – or at least the one most familiar to us – appeared in the 1980s. It was introduced by corporations, marketed as a response to the need to be flexible in the face of global competition, adapting to the unstable economic environment. Companies, it has been claimed, could no longer offer job security to employees and introduced 'employability' instead, as the new psychological contract. As such, it forms part of 'the new spirit of capitalism' (outlined by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello in 2005), substituting a lifelong career in one organisation by a career of numerous temporary projects which promise to make individuals employable to take up further short-term projects.
Employability was met with suspicion even within mainstream business schools, and was considered a concept that employees, even HR managers, would not buy into. Clearly it was not an equal substitute for job security. Yet, it gained the upper hand. Employability was taken up by governments who joined hands with the business world, and, not being able to influence labour demand, they built the whole government policy around labour supply – or employability. Read more...

By Andy Heath. With the easing of international sanctions, UK universities are re-engaging with Burma at a time when the country's higher education sector finds itself caught between two reviews.
It's lunchtime, but in the offices of the National League for Democracy (NLD), no one is stopping work. As we go up a tight staircase into an office hung with portraits of leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her father General Aung San, activists work energetically around tables strewn with documents and maps. Student volunteers flick between drafting policy papers on antiquated PCs and checking Facebook on their iPhones.
The NLD, Burma's main opposition party, is investing great energy in drafting the country's new higher education bill. It is a political priority for the party and its leader, who has called on international support to rebuild the country's universities.Last week we arrived in Burma for the first UK higher education sector-wide mission since the civilian government was returned last year. Led by the UK Higher Education International Unit and Training Gateway, the mission includes sector organisations and representatives from the Universities of Manchester, Nottingham, Roehampton, UEA and the Institute of Education. Read more...

By Harvey Jones. With average student debt running at £39,000, many parents will bear some of the cost burden of a university education. They used to say a good education was priceless, but these days we know exactly what it costs – and it isn't cheap. The average student now expects to graduate with £39,000 of debt, according to the Money Advice Service. Tuition fees of up to £9,000 a year for full-time students (and £6,750 a year for part timers), accommodation costs, living expenses and course books all add up to a hefty sum.
Graduating with debts of £39,000 sounds daunting, but it may still be a price worth paying. On average, graduates earn £12,000 a year more than those without a degree, according to the Office for National Statistics. For many families, parents will bear some of the cost burden of a university education. So what do you need to know if your child is about to embark on higher education? Read more...

Why has Oxford Brookes topped the charts of UK universities teaching students abroad? It's all down to a fruitful collaboration with accountants, explains vice-chancellor Janet Beer.
A partnership between Oxford Brookes University and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (Acca) helps people all over the world who are trying to study their way to a better future.
Our students can add value to their professional Acca qualifications by completing a project that enhances their skills in research and analysis – and earns them a BSc in Applied Accounting.
Since 2000, when the partnership began, 16,544 students have graduated, most of them aged between 20 and 30. All the evidence suggests they are dramatically changing their lives, and those of their families. I have attended graduation ceremonies around the world and the enthusiastic support of the extended family for the students participating in this programme is obvious – they are always bursting with pride and pleasure. Read more...

Government-provided tuition subsidies "crowd out" parental contributions to their children's college educations, although the effect is much more pronounced for students from wealthier families than for those from lower-income backgrounds, a study published Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research asserts. The paper, written by two economists at the University of British Columbia and scholars from Yale and New York University (abstract available here), applies economic modeling to test how various changes in federal financial aid policy would play out if they were put in place. Read more...

By Andrew Trounson for The Australian. An Australian version of the European Union's university profiling tool, U-Map, could be in place within six months as part of a bid to reduce public and institutional obsession with research-biased rankings, while highlighting areas such as teaching.
But the tool will shine a spotlight on universities' vulnerabilities, too, including areas of poor research performance. Unlike the EU's U-Map project, which is dependent on the willingness of universities to participate and supply information, the Australian version will be based on publicly available data and include all universities, whether they like it or not.
Advocates hope it will encourage universities to be proud of their strengths and break the hold that research intensive universities have on prestige. But some fear its profiling will justify further concentration of research funds in a small number of institutions, including the elite Group of Eight. Read more...