REGIONAL HELIX
PORTO, PORTUGAL
June 26th to 28th, 2019
SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY | P.PORTO
4
th
BOOK OF
ABSTRACTS
PARALLEL SESSION 7
HIGHER EDUCATION SUPPLY AND
THE LABOUR MARKET: CROSSINGS
OR PARALLEL PATHS?
Daniela Olo
University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, CETRAD
Leonida Correira
University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, CETRAD
Conceição Rego
University of Évora, CEFAGE
Extended Abstract
The most recent global economic crisis has exposed the structural weaknesses of economies, limiting their capacity to develop, with youth unemployment standing out as one of the greatest challenges in Europe since the beginning of the crisis (Ornellas, Falkner, & Edman Stålbrandt, 2019). Thus, the agendas of supranational organizations such as the European Commission and the World Bank have focused on combating unemployment through a focus on education and research, since this is a scourge with strong economic, political, and social implications that threaten the ability of people to reach an adequate level of well-being (Feldmann, 2009). The Europe 2020 strategy aims to create more jobs and ensure better living conditions. This requires improvement in the quality of teaching, enhancement of research performance, and promotion of innovation and knowledge transfer across the Union (European Commission, 2010). The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations also aims, as one of its objectives for sustainable development, to guarantee access to inclusive, quality, and equitable education to promote opportunities for lifelong learning for all.
Education and science are thus the main drivers for the development of a territory or region (Cinnirella & Streb, 2017). The literature emphasizes Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as key players in promoting local economic development, as they can generate human capital as well as attract highly qualified people to the region (Ma, Kang, & Kwon, 2017). They contribute to a valuation of regional human capital through graduate students (Sezonova, Galchenko, & Khodirevskaya, 2016), who are the richest and most promising part of the potential endogenous (Kroll, Schricke, & Stahlecker, 2013) and the main predictor of regional productivity growth (Yirdaw, 2016). Education and training are thus key factors in the development of any country, helping to accelerate economic growth (Sarid, 2017). The best way to build human capital is through education, especially at the level of higher education (Pinheiro & Pillay, 2016). By investing in education, individuals are expected to be equipped with a range of skills to improve their position in the labour market, as well as their income, particularly through higher salaries (Griffin & Coelhoso, 2019). There is, therefore, an increasing recognition that a population with a higher education level may be more innovative and better able to adapt to technological change (Bodman & Le, 2013), since technological developments require an increase in skills that, in most Western societies, require post-secondary education as the minimum level for successful entry into the labour market (Guichard & Larre, 2006).
Consequently, regions that raise the average education level of their employees tend to introduce novelties into the existing industrial context and become more innovative (Agasisti, Barra, & Zotti, 2017).
The effect that human capital exerts on economic growth involves several means. On the one hand, an increase in human capital directly affects economic growth, increasing labour productivity in production (Teixeira & Queirós, 2016). On the other hand, it constitutes an important contribution to research and, consequently, increases labour productivity indirectly, accelerating technological change (Cinnirella & Streb, 2017; Sánchez-Barrioluengo & Consoli, 2016). Graduates can also create new enterprises that boost the dynamics of the local economic environment as well as contribute to increasing the innovation, creativity, and productivity of local companies (Agasisti et al., 2017). HEIs must do more than simply educate and investigate to be able to play their regional role. They should engage with other stakeholders in their regions, provide opportunities for lifelong learning, and contribute to the development of knowledge-intensive jobs that enable graduates to find local employment and remain in their communities (Albulescu & Albulescu, 2014). According to Sánchez-Barrioluengo and Consoli (2016), the contribution of HEIs to their local environment is often confused with their ability to provide skilled workers to local labour markets. Cooke (2005) describes these institutions as knowledge-generating subsystems that flow through the region and create spillovers for local employers, including the private sector (Goddard & Chatterton, 1999). In this perspective, HEIs generate human capital in the form of specific knowledge and skills that will be incorporated into the workforce (OECD, 2008).
In fact, HEIs around the world are under pressure to produce employable graduates (Maxwell & Armellini, 2019) to combat unemployment and foster employability, understood as the set of skills, knowledge, and personal attributes that allow graduates to obtain employment and to act successfully within it (Frankham, 2017). The recommendations of the European Commission for the modernization of higher education call for the development and implementation of strategies, both in terms of research and pedagogical practices, which encourage the quality of teaching and learning (Comissão Europeia/EACEA/Eurydice, 2014), in order to ensure the development of skills that promote graduates' employability (Jackson & Edgar, 2019). Universities become more aware of the need to address not only the technical skills of students but also the generic skills needed to successfully perform in the ever-changing workplace. The disappearance of some professions, along with the emergence of new ones, is now recurrent, challenging HEIs to continuously plan their educational offerings adjusted to the needs of society (Mason, Williams, & Cranmer, 2009). Universities are expected to explain how their courses contribute to employability, as future employment prospects are one of the reasons why students enter higher education (Taylor & Hooley, 2014).
On the other hand, the difficulty of recruiting the qualified people that companies need poses serious risks to companies' competitiveness, financial health, and even survival (Frankham, 2017). In this context, the qualification of human resources oriented to the needs of the companies is fundamental (Pang, Wong, Leung, & Coombes, 2019). HEIs should establish links with public, central, or local bodies and with companies to ensure that their programs and content lead to higher levels of employability (Rae, 2007). According to Frankham (2017), higher education has, over the last three decades, responded to this problem by including changes in the pedagogical approach, curriculum design and organization, and evaluation regimes (Mason et al., 2009).
According to Chatterton and Goddard (2000), the creation of specialized courses locally oriented to the characteristics of the region, especially those closely linked to the growing Industries in the region, may offer greater possibilities for success and mobility in the regional labour market. This teaching often attracts representatives from local industry to add practical experience to the teaching process. In addition, the courses can be collaboratively undertaken with regional partners and addressed to regional issues.
There is, however, the reverse of the medal, since education programs that are very focused on the economic base of the region may lead to courses being more susceptible to cycles of growth and contraction in the regional economy. In addition, courses geared to regional needs may be of little attraction to non-local students and may also adversely affect student performance in national labour markets.
From this analysis emerges a noteworthy problem, which is that the education system may not be taking into account the differences between regions within national or other political systems, which means that education policy is defined from the top down, disregarding localized particularities (Arbo & Benneworth, 2007; Chatterton & Goddard, 2000). Teaching and research in HEIs may not be sufficiently targeted to specific economic and social objectives. This environment that confronts HEIs and regions has important implications for institutional management. In the past, higher education in most countries was funded primarily by national governments to meet the needs of the national labour market for skilled labour and to provide an ability to meet national needs for research and technological development. In this sense, national policies and systems represent a very important constraint on what can be achieved by universities in their regions (Chatterton & Goddard, 2000).
In order to better understand the contributions of HEIs to the specific needs of the regions, especially regarding employability, an empirical study is developed that demonstrates the relationship between the educational offerings of Portuguese universities and graduates’ employability. The study seeks to answer a research question—Is there an interconnection (or adjustment) between the educational offerings of Portuguese universities and the labour market needs of the regions where they are inserted?—with regard to the northern region of Portugal. This study aims to determine what role Portuguese universities play in the education system, trying to understand whether their objective is to contribute to the increase of human capital at the service of employability, adjusting the educational offerings to the needs of the labour market, or whether they have the objective of advancing knowledge per se and management of national objectives for higher education.
To carry out the study according to the intended goal, on the demand side, the employment offers received by Employment and Vocational Training Institute (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional, IEFP) are analysed, and on the supply side, the educational offer of public universities in this region—University of Porto (UPorto), University of Minho (UMinho), and University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD)—is examined. We chose to study the reality of universities because it is already inherent to the mission of polytechnical institutes to respond to specific needs of employability.
The analysis is based on secondary data provided by the IEFP, referring to the job offers received in its employment centres in the northern region of Portugal during the first half of 2018. This database allows us to characterize the offers (licentiate, master, and doctorate) for the period under study, consisting of a total of 1 265 offers distributed by different occupations.
Job vacancies are registered by the IEFP according to the Portuguese Classification of Occupations (Classificação Portuguesa de Profissões, CPP). In turn, universities classify their courses according to the National Classification of Education and Training Areas (Classificação Nacional de Áreas de Educção e Formação, CNAEF). Therefore, in the context of the objective of the study, it was necessary to create a correspondence table between CPP and CNAEF, in order to standardize the data analysis unit of the different sources and thus draw relevant conclusions. Until now this correspondence has been non-existent, so that this output is intended to make a relevant contribution to the area under study.
Secondary data is also used to characterize the educational offer of universities, but now it is collected from the universities under study, Directorate General of Higher Education (Direção- Geral de Ensino Superior, DGES) and Directorate General of Statistics of Education and Science (Direção-Geral de Estatística da Educação e Ciência, DGEEC). The treatment of data from all sources was done based on descriptive statistics, in order to answer the research question.
The results of this study verify that there is agreement between the educational offer of the universities and those that the job market seeks. Thus, it demonstrates that, in addition to the fact that the role of universities is essentially to promote research and the creation of knowledge for sound scientific and cultural preparation, it is also up to them to observe employability and market needs by outlining the necessity for an adjustment between the training offerings and the market needs of the region where the universities are located. The present study suffers from some constraints. First, the short period of time used to analyse he market needs has limited the formulation of conclusions and generalizations. At the time of writing, only one-semester data on job offers registered by the IEFP were available. Another difficulty was the lack of a basis of connection between CPP and CNAEF, so it was necessary to make such correspondence within the scope of this study in order to standardize the unit of analysis. Obviously, this procedure is subject to some subjectivity.
As a line of future research, it is our intention to deepen this research, in particular through the use of a broader database for a more comprehensive set of results. Additionally, we intend to complement the output of the secondary data with primary data obtained through interviews and to extend the geographical scope of the study to the other regions of Portugal.
This paper is organized in three parts. After the introduction, the first part consists of the literature review, which seeks to show the state of the art on how higher education is related to development and employability, as well as a brief description of the Portuguese higher education system. The second part develops the empirical study, with its analysis and discussion of results. The third part contains a brief conclusion, highlighting the main ideas to be retained.
Keywords: Regional Development, Higher Education, Employability, Labour Market, Educational Offer, Northern Portugal Region.
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