Whether a broad undergraduate curriculum prepares students well for academic and professional specialization is a much-debated question. This discussion is particularly relevant in the context of European liberal arts bachelor's programmes, which recently re-emerged as an exception to the continental norm of specialized undergraduate curricula.…

This paper analyses how three European countries produce and use data within a specific educational policy field, that of school leaving and graduation. It compares how stakeholders in England, Finland and the Netherlands know what happens to the leavers from schools and universities. Through gathering evidence about the methodological…

This research paper is the fifth in a series produced as part of the Cedefop project The changing nature and role of VET (2016-18). Based on comparative analysis of labour force survey data from 2014, the report analyses the vocational effect on labour market and education outcomes, asking whether any advantages conferred by vocational…

In higher education dual systems, graduates are qualified to apply for jobs in same professional fields along two separated educational routes. The research problem is whether the rival applicants for professional positions are treated equally in the labour market despite their different qualifications. From the graduates point of view, to be…

This paper uses an experimental design to estimate preferences of employers for key competencies during the transition from initial education to the labor market. The study is restricted to employers of entry-level academic graduates entering public health organizations in the Netherlands. Given the changing and complex demands in public health,…

In this article, we have analysed whether graduates from activating learning environments assess themselves as having more generic and reflective competences than graduates who studied in conventional learning environments. We have also investigated whether graduates from different learning environments look back differently on their training for…

Constant changes in society and the public health domain force public health professionals into new roles and the development of new competencies. Public health professionals will need to be trained to respond to this challenge. The aim of this comparative study among Poland, the UK and the Netherlands is to identify competence needs for Master of…

In this study, we explore the value of personality characteristics in explaining success in labor market entry with a sample of graduates in economics from Maastricht University (the Netherlands). Specifically, the paper addresses the following twofold research question: does personality explain labor market outcomes, and how much weight does this…

Compares employment opportunities for graduates and dropouts of two types of education in the Netherlands, using an estimation model for labor market position (employed and underemployed) in the first years after leaving school. Completed inservice training does not offer more advantageous transition probabilities than full-time education in the…

Until 1975 around half of all graduates from Dutch basic vocational schools finished a 3-year program, the other half finished a 4-year program. In 1975 all 3-year programs were extended to four years. This was accompanied by an increase of the compulsory school leaving age with one year. The authors evaluate the long-term wage effects of this…

Short-term forecasting methods for assessing the number of students finishing schooling in France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are reviewed. Types of data that are available for each country are discussed, as well as suggestions for data that need to be collected for more efficient forecasting. (Author/IS)