Learning for employability: Integrating employability into professional bachelor programmes and quality assurance in four higher education systems

The paper reports on a comparative study, conducted in 2013-14, of four higher education systems (the Netherlands, Flanders, North Rhine-Westphalia and Ireland), which aimed to find out how higher education institutions integrate learning for employability into professional bachelor programmes in three different knowledge areas (mechanical engineering, social work and tourism), and how external quality assurance attended to employability aspects. Case studies of 24 selected, well-performing study programmes identified good practices as well as commonly-used elements and strategies, organised throughout the whole education cycle of input-process-results (output) and its quality assurance. Findings included that the studied professional bachelor programmes give sufficient attention to learning for employability, but that ways to do so differ by country and by field. Attention for employability differed across quality assurance systems as well.