Formal, non-formal and informal learning and higher education graduates' reemployment: evidence for Portugal

Unemployment rates among Portuguese Higher Education (HE) graduates have been rising. This trend becomes quite obvious when we compare Portugal and other European Member States whose labor markets have been facing similar difficulties. In fact, Portuguese graduates are not only more prone to facing unemployment but they are also enduring long term unemployment as a result of the current unemployment crisis. Among the main reasons for this situation is the mismatch between the supply and demand for qualifications due to the inability of the Portuguese labor market to absorb higher skills (chimney effect). Nevertheless, competition in demand and the need to overcome labor productivity’s weaknesses create the need for actions (education, training policies and labor market interventions) to improve the match between supply and demand for HE qualifications in order to prevent social disinvestment and to foster inclusion and economic development. In the short and medium term, given the economic and social development strategy, adjustments will consider the need to redefine the HE graduates’ skills and profiles throughout education and training. In this paper we are concerned with the effects on HE unemployed graduates’ reemployment of additional education programs compared to informal and non-formal learning activities. We take life cycle theories and Willis (1986) as our main theoretical reference. We use the database of the Adult Education Survey (AES 2007) developed by the Statistics Portugal, following methodological guidelines issued by EUROSTAT and adopted in all European Union Member States. The survey covers adult participation in formal and Non-Formal Education and informal activities and comprises 11289 cases (individuals). When assessing the main influences of education, non-formal and Informal Learning activities on (re)employment, we use AES data on labor market transitions between two consecutive periods. We control for parents’ education and occupation, individual’s previous schooling, gender and age. Our research methodology is quantitative. We use chi-square independence tests, correlation analysis and tests for equality of proportions. We expect to highlight the ability displayed by non-formal and Informal Learning to redesign educational formal skills, with a special insight into HE skills. The Portuguese HE system tends to be theoretically focused and practical internship is rare even in this post-Bologna phase. Accordingly Non-Formal Education - especially vocational training tailored to labor market occupations - could prove to be a most useful resource in reshaping graduates’ profiles and promoting their employment/reemployment. Informal Learning is also expected to play a major role in the processes of skills acquisition and mobilization related to practical knowledge, thereby enhancing social networking and employability. We aim to assess how much HE programs and non-formal and Informal Learning contribute to enhance graduates’ employment opportunities and to identify pivotal areas for change in HE and non-formal programs.Formal, non formal and informal learning; higher education graduates; employability

Universities and economically depressed regions: how strong is the influence of the University of Évora in the regional human capital?

Universities are a source of significant multiplier effects upon local and regional economic activity. In the case of economically depressed regions, the importance of universities is enhanced. This is the case of the University of Évora, located in Alentejo (Portugal), one of the poorest EU regions, where it has been a key element to the dynamics of local economic activity. Apart from a direct impact upon the economic activity of Alentejo, the University of Évora has also been promoting demographic effects, both by encouraging new permanent residents to the area, and also by attracting a fluctuating mass of students which usually become residents during the period of time required to obtain their degrees. In this paper a population of former University of Évora students is analysed with the objective of answering questions related to their connections with the city of Évora, and its surrounding areas, after graduation, and also to analyse their impact upon the regional economic activity and their contribution to the improvement of the regional labour force. The University of Évora is also assessed from the perspective of its relationships with other regional agents, in terms of knowledge and innovation transference. It is concluded that one of the main contributions of the University of Évora to the regional economic activity occurs via the employment of its graduates in local and regional schools, enterprises and other institutions. KEY-WORDS: Human Capital, Regional Development, Universities JEL CLASSIFICATION: O15, O18, R12

A Comparative Study of Some Features of Higher Education in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary

The transition from the centralized economy to the market economy has determined important changes in higher education in the countries of the former socialist bloc. In a relatively short period an impressive growth in the number of students has been recorded without taking into account the evolution of the number of pupils in high school and demographic phenomena, such as increased migration, reduced birth rate, and so on. In a medium and long time horizon the current increases in the number of students cannot be sustained. For the analysis of the data series we used a number of econometric techniques.regression models, cointegration, higher education statistics, education expenditures, ADF, unit roots

Argentina´s Distributional Failure: The role of Integration and Public Policies

This paper documents the income distribution changes experienced by Argentina during the last decades. Inequality substantially increased, and despite economic growth during some periods, poverty also went significantly up. Two types of episodes have shaped Argentina’s income distribution: deep macroeconomic crisis and periods of openness and integration. The sizeable raise in inequality in the 90s seems to be associated to reallocations against unskilled-labor intensive sectors, and especially to skilled-biased technological change within most sectors, both factors stimulated by the process of economic integration. The depth and speed of the reforms and the absence of public policies to ease the transition contributed to the particular severity of the income distribution changes in Argentina.inequality, distribution, globalization, integration, wages, education, Argentina

Beyond Manpower Planning: ROA's Labour Market Model and its Forecasts to 2002

This paper describes the forecasting model of the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), which has been developed for making forecasts about developments of the labour market position of different types of education with respect to the Dutch labour market. Every two years, ROA compiles forecasts of changes in the labour market in the medium term, differentiated by a large number of economic sectors, occupational classes and types of education to illustrate the meaning of the information. The paper aims particularly to describe the objectives, the basic principles, the theoretical foundations and the structure of ROA''s forecasting approach and the major labour market indicators in more detail. The forecast labour market developments for the types of education up to the year 2002 will also be presented. Due to the low level of aggregation used, these forecasts provide very useful information for people who are involved in decisions about educational investments.education, training and the labour market;

Internships and Erasmus Mobility Programs as a platform to employability: The perception of hospitality management undergraduate students of ESTH / IPG

Nowadays considered a relevant issue in terms of employability but are still not deeply researched by scientific research in Portugal, concerning the specific case of professional activities within Hospitality Management. We revise these concepts and contexts, and also their interrelations and importance, especially for the Hospitality Management education and practices. Additionally, the present study aims to expose and discuss the points of view of a group of undergraduate students about: i) internships and Erasmus mobility programs ii) their perception of the importance of those contexts for their employability. So, with an exploratory and a quantitative methodology, this study presents the surveyed students characterisation and explores some important aspects of their internships and mobility experiences, and also their employability expectations generated by those experiences. Besides the presentation of the main results of the ongoing survey we compare the results about the mobility experiences and the associated perception of employability with some of the results presented in The Erasmus Impact Study [1] which is a large and recent study made at a European level. Finally, we reflect about the study limitations and the main conclusions extracted from the study. We also underline some possible implications of this work and research issues to deepen in the future

Global partnerships to local challenges : the actor's vision and the new educational horizons

A version of this paper was firstly presented on the Conference COOPEDU IV: Cooperação e Educação de Qualidade, 8-9 November 2018The global partnerships for development are an important incentive to local growth as joint efforts are made to assist developing countries. We emphasize actions in the field of education, as they constitute a catalyst for local development, with a special focus on HE since empirical evidence shows that this level of education represents an important factor in local, national and global economic progress. It is important to mention that this type of education plays a central role in an increasingly globalized and internationalized world where knowledge and innovation are part of the most developed and most competitive societies. In this sense, we have the objective of analysing the opinions given by the different Actors gathered through an inquiry, and confront them with the conceptual framework in order to see if their opinions meet the expected attitudes of the established partnerships. For this purpose, the CATWOE methodology is used to trace the route and to characterize the Conceptual Model in the scope of HE in order to perceive the transformations resulting from its actions and those that would be necessary to optimize the process.As parcerias globais para o desenvolvimento são um importante incentivo para o crescimento local, uma vez que esforços conjuntos são feitos para ajudar os países em desenvolvimento. Enfatizamos ações no campo da educação, pois elas constituem um catalisador para o desenvolvimento local, com foco especial no ensino superior, uma vez que as evidências empíricas mostram que esse nível de educação representa um fator importante no progresso econômico local, nacional e global. É importante mencionar que este tipo de educação desempenha um papel central num mundo cada vez mais globalizado e internacionalizado, onde o conhecimento e a inovação fazem parte das sociedades mais desenvolvidas e competitivas. Nesse sentido, temos o objetivo de analisar as perspetivas dadas pelos diferentes atores, reunidos por meio de um inquérito, e confrontá-los com o quadro conceptual, a fim de verificar se as suas conceções correspondem às esperadas das parcerias estabelecidas. Para tal, a metodologia CATWOE é utilizada para traçar o percurso e caracterizar o Modelo Conceptual no âmbito do Ensino Superior, a fim de perceber as transformações decorrentes das suas ações e aquelas que seriam necessárias para otimizar o processo.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Internships and Erasmus mobility programs as a platform to employability: The perception of hospitality management undergraduate

These transversal skills promoted in individuals through internships and Erasmus mobility are nowadays considered a relevant issue in terms of employability but are still not deeply researched by scientific research in Portugal, concerning the specific case of professional activities within Hospitality Management. We revise these concepts and contexts, and also their interrelations and importance, especially for the Hospitality Management education and practices. Additionally, the present study aims to expose and discuss the points of view of a group of undergraduate students about: i) internships and Erasmus mobility programs ii) their perception of the importance of those contexts for their employability. So, with an exploratory and a quantitative methodology, this study presents the surveyed students characterisation and explores some important aspects of their internships and mobility experiences, and also their employability expectations generated by those experiences. Besides the presentation of the main results of the ongoing survey we compare the results about the mobility experiences and the associated perception of employability with some of the results presented in The Erasmus Impact Study [1] which is a large and recent study made at a European level. Finally, we reflect about the study limitations and the main conclusions extracted from the study. We also underline some possible implications of this work and research issues to deepen in the future