Skills Plus: Employability in Higher Education

The aim was to enhance graduates' employability by working with 17 subject departments in 4 universities on curriculum design and carrying out research into the understanding of what employability means in the work place through the views of recently employed graduates and their co-workers.

The Skills Plus project was funded by the Innovations fund between 2000 and 2002. It had a profound influence on the work of HEFCE's Enhancing Student Employability Co-ordination Team (ESECT) between September 2002 and February 2005.

It had two strands. One, which engaged 17 departments in four North-West universities, was to explore ways of 'tuning' existing curricula to enhance their contribution to student employability. Most of the dozen project papers relate to this strand.

The second was to find out what employability meant to recent, employed graduates and those who worked alongside them or supervised them. This research has significantly influenced the way that ESECT describes employability.

To find out more, read Knight, P. T. and Yorke, M. (2004) Learning, Curriculum and Employability in Higher Education. London: Routledge. (ISBN 0415303435).

Skills Plus Papers

Paper 1: Tuning the Undergraduate Curriculum - Peter Knight and Mantz Yorke (September 2000) (RTF, 122kb)

Paper 2: Notes to Guide Reading Self-theories (DOC, 68kb)

Paper 3: Employability in First Cycle Higher Education (RTF, 193kb)

Paper 4: Employability and Assessment (RTF, 270kb)

Paper 9: Tuning The Undergraduate Curriculum (June 2002) (DOC, 218kb)

Paper 10: Making round pegs to fit round holes: should higher education do more to develop 'employability'? (RTF, 133kb)

Paper 12: Foundations for Change (DOC, 123kb)

Skills Plus Final Report (DOC, 196kb)

Reference: Skills Plus: Employability in Higher Education, 2000-2002, a collaborative project carried out by Universities in the North West, NWDA and the Open University Centre for Outcomes-Based Education, and funded by HEFCE