This paper was presented at an event, 'The Skills Revolution: can lifelong learning save the UK economy?', jointly organised by NEON, Ruskin College, The University of West London, and CEILUP (Centre for Inequality and Levelling Up). In the paper the author argues that there is an urgent need to rethink and reform England's skills system and…

Michelle Weise is senior vice president for workforce strategies and chief innovation officer at Strada Education Network. Weise is a higher education expert who specializes in innovation and connections between higher education and the workforce. She built and led Sandbox ColLABorative at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) and the higher…

In addition to higher learning, universities are expected to also 'do' employability and help students transition from education to employment. Accordingly, a wide range of approaches have emerged and we, as academics, dedicate substantial efforts to designing and implementing attractive employability offerings for our degree programmes. We spend…

This paper contributes to critical understandings of the significance of employability in current debates about the transformation of Higher Education (HE). We express our concerns about the implications of orientating HE to utilitarian demands in the light of a tendency to align discussions about the significance of studying at university with…

The purpose of this commentary is to: illustrate the challenges that Japanese advertising education faces; find the possible causes for the difficulties faced; and consider potential solutions to overcome the challenges and prepare students for a fast-paced global workforce.

What sorts of skills and training will graduates need for the jobs of the future? Are universities equipped to deliver job-ready graduates? Where will the necessary funds come from? What role will academics play, and what sort of workplace conditions will they face? The paper reflects the role of the university sector to do its mandated duty as a…

Could knowledge work practices become pervasive in formal education? Could knowledge creation pedagogies help us close the gap between graduates' knowledge work competencies and fast changing needs of the knowledge society? In this commentary, I first revisit the most notable contributions of this special issue. Then, I turn to some overarching…

As the largest funder of adult basic education (ABE) in the nation, providing over $600 million through its Basic Grants to States (U.S. Department of Education, 2019), the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) drives ABE policies and practices. In a review of the announcement on Title II, the phrase "transition to" is repeated…

Clifford Adleman begins this piece with his statement that the foremost marker of student outcomes in higher education, for the enterprise, for the commentariat, and for legislators, has traditionally been institutional graduation rates. He goes on to note that whatever one thinks of the various ways that marker has been produced, it has now faded…

This paper is positioned at the junction between the requirements of the manufacturing industry for a significantly increased number of professionally registered engineers in the UK employment pool and the excellent work which is ongoing in and around the education sector to encourage more young people to follow a career in this field. Higher…

What do K-12 schools need to do to prepare their students for adult success? This was the question that originally catalyzed the standards-and-accountability movement some 30 years ago, though it seems somehow to have gotten lost. Today the question merits revisiting, because addressing it makes a strong case for taking an integrated approach to…

This article seeks to reignite debate about the purpose of a university music education. Taking inspiration from Randall Thompson's 1935 investigation of the role of music preparation in U.S. colleges and universities, an analogous call is made for a less vocational approach to the study of music. The author claims that the music education…

To build postsecondary institutions that educate responsible citizens as well as competent employees and consumers, it is important that people must teach and learn themselves about the context--domestic and global--in which work is to be done, and the purposes which economic and technological development serve. One aspect of that context is the…

As unemployment levels rise, so education and training move into the policy spotlight. For the government, this is a very uncomfortable place to be right now. A number of large companies have withdrawn from the flagship Work Programme--under which jobseekers are invited to take up unpaid work placements of between two and eight weeks--amid…

This is a fascinating time for adult learning in the UK. With a plethora of reviews reaching report stage alongside ongoing discussion about funding, qualifications and quality and the review of post-16 planning and funding in Wales, there is a real sense that things are about to change after a decade of well-meant but often misfocused reform.…