Relationship between ‘employability’ and ‘higher  education’ from global ranker and accreditor’s  perspectives—does a gap exist between  institutional policy making and implementation in  taiwan higher education?

Chi Hou,  Angela Yung; Hill, Christopher; Justiniano, Dewin; Yang, Connie; Gong, Quan

This item is non-discoverable

Relationship between ‘employability’ and ‘higher education’ from global ranker and accreditor’s perspectives—does a gap exist between institutional policy making and implementation in taiwan higher education?

Date

2021-05-12

Authors

Publisher

Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract

Driven by global rankings and national quality assurance (QA) initiatives, Taiwan’s higher education institutions were encouraged to develop stra tegic plans and initiatives, in order to improve graduate student employ ability. The purpose of this study is to explore the polices and strategies adopted by Taiwanese higher education institutions, with a particular focus on ‘employability’, in terms of standards and indicators of QS rank ing and Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT) programme accreditation in 2017. This paper analysed strategic plans and self-assessments reports from 20 Taiwanese universities in order to determine the impact of ranking and QA on employability initiatives and associated implications for institutional policy. The study presents three major findings. First, the emergence of global ranking and national quality assurance systems pressured Taiwanese universities to situate several employability initiatives within their institutional strategic plans. Second, Taiwanese universities applied varying approaches to the inte gration of graduate employability into institutional policies and strategic plans, according to ranking and national accreditation standards. Third, the gap between institutional policy making and actual implementation of employability initiatives exists in the Taiwanese context.

Keywords

Employability; globalranking; nationalaccreditation; qualityassurance

Citation

Hou, A.Y.C. et al. (2021) “Relationship between ‘employability’ and ‘higher education’ from global ranker and accreditor’s perspectives—does a gap exist between institutional policy making and implementation in taiwan higher education?,” Journal of Education and Work, 34(3), pp. 292–312.