Tracking graduates - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 423/1

The employability of graduates leaving education and training is a matter of concern in many Member States, in particular because the employment rate of recent higher education graduates in the Union has not fully recovered after the 2008 financial crisis (1) and the employment situation of graduates of vocational education and training programmes varies across Member States.

Therefore, Member States, in cooperation with social partners, were encouraged, through the Guidelines for the Employment Policies of the Member States for 2015 (2), to promote productivity and employability through an appropriate supply of relevant knowledge, skills and competences.

To achieve that objective, good quality information about what graduates do after obtaining their qualification or leaving education and training is essential, in order to both understand the causes of graduate employability problems in particular regions, economic sectors or for graduates from particular higher education or vocational education and training disciplines, and to identify solutions for those employability problems. The value of such information is highlighted in both the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) (3) and the European Quality Assurance Framework for Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET) (4).

However, since the systems for collecting, analysing and using data on the outcomes for graduates from higher education and vocational education and training are not well developed in many parts of the Union, better information is needed for students to make informed choices about what to study, or for the design of educational programmes or government policy.

Moreover, transitions to the labour market are largely driven by the economic context, level of qualification and field of study. They are also influenced by socio-demographic factors and socioeconomic background of the family (5). Therefore gathering data on the impact of those various factors is essential to address the issue comprehensively.

Although many Member States are developing systems for tracking, the exchange of knowledge, good practice and mutual learning is limited.

Since existing comparable data are limited in scope and data collected nationally are not comparable to that collected in other Member States, it is challenging to draw any conclusions from differences in trends or outcomes across countries and regions.

The results of the public consultation (6) on the Union's modernisation agenda for higher education revealed concerns that higher education is not providing graduates with the knowledge, skills and competences that they need to thrive in a rapidly evolving educational and employment environment, and that there remain continued skills mismatches in some Member States.

Member States have called for action at Union level, aimed at improving the flow of information about employability, skills mismatches and labour market needs. In particular, the 2015 Joint Report of the Council and the Commission on the implementation of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET 2020) (7) proposes the promotion of the relevance of higher education to the labour market and society, including through better intelligence and...