Good Practice Guide

Graduate Employability: Can higher education deliver?

Angela Maher and Sarah Graves

Graduate employability has become an increasingly important issue for higher education over the past 20 years with universities finding themselves under increasing pressure to address employability in the curriculum.  However, approaches to enhancing and embedding employability vary widely across the HE sector and there is lack of consensus on how best to approach this aspect of students' development.

Perhaps more importantly, the discourse of employability has raised some fundamental questions about the role of higher education in modern society and the extent to which 'employability' represents an attack on academic freedom.  Based on extensive literature review and empirical research the authors address these key questions and offer some guidance for higher education institutions interested in enhancing the employability of their students.

This book and its sister publication, Developing Graduate Employability: case studies in hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism (Threshold Press 2008) are outputs from the FDTL5 'Enhancing Graduate Employability' project.  To obtain copies please contact Angela Maher at amaher@brookes.ac.uk.