[WEEF2017][Full paper] Skills Gap and Interdisciplinary Curriculum Students’ Perspective

Skills Gap and Interdisciplinary Curriculum Students’ Perspective Davor Pasovic BEST-Board of European Students of Technology 1 Vienna, Austria davor.pasovic@best.eu.org

João Ramos Clemente1 Lisbon, Portugal joao.ramos.clemente@best.eu.org

Raquel Chaves1 Coimbra, Portugal raquel.chaves@best.eu.org

Przemyslaw Mikulski1 Copenhagen, Denmark przemyslaw.mikulski@best.eu.org

Tatiana Kovaleva1 Saint Petersburg,Russia tatiana.kovaleva@best.eu.org Abstract— To successfully enter the workforce, young graduates need a specific skillset. However, there is a gap between these skills and the actual set of skills young graduates obtain from their university experience. In this paper we present the European students’ perspective on the issue of the skills gap between the current higher education STEM curricula and company expectations. A possible solution to the skills gap issue is the creation of joint programmes, in which universities and companies cooperate in order to establish a curriculum that is adequate to the needs of all stakeholders. One of the main positives about joint programmes is the variety of teaching methods, which is seen as something that leads to more open-minded graduates with a wider perspective on the engineering profession. The combination of technical and socio-economic subjects into a single degree is one of the ways to solve the skills gap. Interdisciplinary competence does not only arise from practical experience but should also be an integral part of any educational system. We conclude that all stakeholders involved in education have to strive for better synergy when it comes to shaping the curricula of engineering programmes.

Keywords — skills gap, programmes, synergy.

I.

students, industry, academia, joint

INTRODUCTION

Companies have particular expectations towards young graduates, who need a specific skillset in order to successfully enter the workforce [1]. However, there is a gap between these expectations and the actual set of skills young graduates obtain from their university experience.

What are the skills and knowledge that students miss in order to be a right choice for the companies? What kind of mindset

should a newly graduated engineer have in order to successfully enter the workforce?

European students see successful graduates as someone who has taken a lot of extracurricular activities, including internships and studies abroad, which helped to develop their soft-skills, practical skills and learn new languages. Such activities are not offered enough by the university and therefore students can’t achieve the level that companies expect from fresh graduates [2].

Nowadays global companies are involved in international projects that requires from employees to collaborate in multinational teams using online working platforms. It means that recent graduates should have particular skills to be able to work on global projects [1].

Since the middle of the 1990s, the engineering community has been developing the knowledge and skills that are related to interdisciplinarity as defined by, researchers, and policy makers in a variety of fields [3]. Interdisciplinary competence does not only arise from practical experience, but should also be an integral part of any education [4].

Through educational involvement BEST (Board of European Students of Technology) aims to gather the students’ opinion on educational related topics including the skills gap and to increase the students’ awareness of them. Besides educational involvement, BEST provides complementary education and career support as ones of its 3 main services.

BEST is a constantly growing non-profit and non-political student organisation, that consists of more than 3500 members, and reaches more than 1 million students in 32

different countries on 95 different Technical Universities in Europe.

In this paper we present the European students’ perspective on the issue of the skills gap between the current higher education STEM curricula and companies’ expectations.

II. MATERIALS AND METHODS BEST organises Events on Education (EoE) to gather the students’ opinions on education-related topics. Each EoE is 12 weeks long and gathers 22 students. BEST selects students which have different cultural and educational backgrounds in order to reach a broader variety. Besides students, professors, company representatives and other educational experts participate in the EoEs. BEST invites them according to their knowledge and work done on the topics that the EoEs cover.

They introduce the topics and state their point of view neutrally. Some EoEs in which company representatives participated happened under the name BEST Academics and Companies forum (BACo).

BEST sends 4 facilitators to each EoE. The facilitators are experienced BEST members. They use different facilitation methods, such as case studies, discussion groups, debates and Learning Cafes in order to get the most valuable outcomes.

The outcomes are gathered by the facilitators and transmitted into a report.

The findings from the following reports were used for this paper: EoE Riga [2], EoE Gliwice [5] and EoE Copenhagen [6]. Additionally the reports from EoE Milan [7] and BACo Brussels [8], which happened in 2007, were used to compare the findings now and from 10 years ago.

During this EoEs and during the BACo we discussed the existing skill gaps and ways of solving them. Each EoE/BACo tackled different aspects of the skills gap issue.

In BACo Brussels [8] besides students also IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) took part in the event.

The following topics which are relevant for this paper were discussed on these EoEs: ●

EoE Riga [2]: continuous professional development (CPD), the gap between teaching profiles and professional skills, as well as skills and learning objectives ● EoE Gliwice [5]: university-business cooperation, how to adjust the university curricula in order to match the business environment ● EoE Copenhagen [6]: interdisciplinary subjects in the engineering curriculum ● EoE Milano [7]: skills needed or the labour market, how universities are developing those skills ● BACo Brussels [8]: skills which students should have in their future careers In 2014 BEST conducted a Market Research survey with 29 different universities in its network, across 19 European countries. In this survey, university representatives were asked about their opinion on different topics regarding engineering education. The involved universities are highly diverse in background, geographical position, international ranking and number of students.

III. Results During two Symposia organised by BEST in 2007, participants had discussed the most important skills that a student should possess after graduation. Those skills were: team playing, networking skills, leadership, presentation skills, and professional skills.

The participants of the discussion described the student profile with: ability to think critically, creativity, flexibility, assertiveness, proactiveness, ambitious, tolerance, reliability, taking attitude, openness to new technologies, competitive spirit and knowledge. The participants agreed that students of the future should have a clear idea about their skills and about the needs and expectations of the companies. These students should also have some basic knowledge of economics and management, even though they are studying engineering, adding also presentation skills and soft skills. The knowledge of more foreign languages is a must, as well as abilities like team-work, good communication and leadership skills.

Concerning the technical part of the student’s profile, most of the participants were satisfied by the education they get in their fields of work.

As it is presented in Table 1. the students’ opinion within important skills which are increasing the chances to be employed in the industry did not change too much between 2007 and 2015.

What the EoE Riga 2015 survey presented, in relation to surveys from previous EoEs, is also an increase in the expectations from the student in terms of skills needed to present while applying for a job. The best example of that increase seems to be the knowledge of at least 3 languages, while English stopped being an advantage. The point regarding the ability to give and take feedback is also worth mentioning; this underlines the communication skills and the so-called constructive critic which is a trending skill within the industry [14].

Some of the most relevant skills discussed were: flexibility/adaptability, emotional intelligence, analytical, soft social communication skills (team work, public presentations, etc), open-mindedness, perseverance, responsibility, planning, synthetic mind, understanding other’s needs, willingness to provide services and curiosity/willingness to learn more.

TABLE I. Results on the most important skills for a student BACo

Symposium

Brussels 2007

Milan 2007

-Basic knowledge in economics and management;

-Technical knowledge

-Knowledge of more foreign languages;

-Practical experience (internships, etc)

-Flexibility/adaptability,

-Soft skills

working stages,

EoE Riga 2015

-Have a basic set of soft-skills: time management, communication, working in team -Be confident in their skills, but not to be arrogant or have high

-Emotional intelligence,

-Economic skills

expectations

-Analytical,soft social communication skills (team work, public presentations, etc),

-Global knowledge

-Know at languages

-Open-minded, perseverance, responsibility, planning, synthetic mind, -Understanding other’s needs, -Willingness to provide services and curiosity/ willingness to learn more

-Speak languages

(general) foreign

-Personal development -Basic culture of the country

least

3

-Have professional experience for specific job/extensive engineering knowledge in the field -Experience cultures

different

-Work on continuous development -Know how to focus on solutions (problem solving skills)

Fig. 1: Educational Focus of universities

-Be able to give/take feedback

TABLE II. Division of tools for employability and the keywords per team Tools, platforms, channels for a job search

-Graduate from good university (helps in getting internship)

EoEs provide insight regarding the gap between skills taught at universities and those requested by the companies. 67% of students surveyed during the EoE in Riga considered it a fact that universities are mostly focused on technical skills and lacking in terms of soft skills. The soft skills which are not taught by university are time management, teamwork, presentation and communication skills. 33% of engineering students claimed that theoretical skills which are developed the most while studying are not enough to find a job.

Economics and so-called ‘entrepreneurship knowledge’ could be very useful to find a position on the labour market. Only 50% of students said that universities teach creativity and analytical thinking which are supposed to be the skills very highly ranked by the companies. The most important for all of the participants of EoE Riga while studying was definitely the technical skills but mainly developed by the practical exercises like internships, laboratories and projects before the soft skills.

Keywords

Team 1

Job fairs

University job fairs; student organisations; organisations

Team 2

Websites; employment platforms; networks

Platforms for employment; job advertising websites; blogs

Team 3

Mailing lists; newsletters

University mailing lists; job newsletters; company mailing lists; NGO mailing lists

Team 4

Conferences; symposia

Conferences; symposia; forums

Examples Com

During EoE Riga students brainstormed different aspects of University - Industry collaboration. Each of the student attending was distributed to one of the 4 teams in which he/she discussed the topic.

Job

Univ

General characteri

NGO Positive Direct contact Fig. 2: Team 1

Negative Logistics;

LinkedIn

Lensa

beWanted (p) Graphics

Employ

(p) - Positive

Indeed Fig. 3: Team 2 TABLE 3. Team 3 Newsletters ➢ ➢ ➢

Mailing lists

A lot of useless info; Finding opportunities without searching; Specific division.

➢ ➢ ➢

Networking; A lot of useless info; Hard to find the relevant mailing lists.

TABLE 4: Team 4

Conferences and symposia Features: ➢ Big format events; ➢ One speaker in front of an audience; ➢ Company presentations; ➢ Questions and answers time.

Pros: ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢

Cons: Overview of the companies; HR speaker; Tips about applying for the jobs; Time for questions and discussions.

➢ ➢ ➢ ➢

Subjective point of view; Contact not only with your specific field; Little chance to get a job; Lack of personal approach.

The analysis of the web tools and platforms connecting students with the industry was performed quite deeply. All of them are offering many opportunities, but they are very competitive and do not provide a lot of information, which means that it is difficult to find appropriate information about skills and experience required for the future jobs. The team suggested that universities could have their own job/internship platforms which would only be available to students of this specific industry. This would help them find a job in a very competitive web environment.

Around 100% of the students’ mailing lists and newsletters were placed in the same box - useless information box. There are also two different negative aspects like difficulties in finding the right mailing list as well as the very specific type of newsletters available – it requires too much time to go through all.

Conferences and symposia organised both by companies and universities are not the best places to start interacting with the industry according to the students’ opinions. That is mainly connected with the very low chances of getting a job offer during the event as well as a very general treatment from the company side. Conferences and symposia are dedicated to the engineers and senior employees, not HR, from which knowledge of different required skills is coming from IV. Discussion For quite some time, the skills gap has been an issue at the forefront of the educational agenda at the highest institutional level. The European Commission’s Europe 2020 strategy for Education and Training [9] led to the creation, in 2013, of the European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) system [10]. The ESCO system bridges the dialogue between the labour market and the education sector, and has played a very important role in pushing the status quo of engineering education in Europe.

Following this trend, many in the industry and academia have approached the topic and provided interesting perspectives on it. While this paper focuses on the student perspective of the skills gap issue, it is interesting to compare it with what the other stakeholders are saying. According to a survey [11] by the Institute of Engineering and Technology, 68% of companies are concerned that the education system will struggle to keep up with the skills required for technological change, while 62% are concerned about the skills of graduates.

Furthermore, 50% say that they find that a typical graduate engineering recruit does not meet their expectations. These findings are worrying, and paint a clear picture that all stakeholders involved in education have to strive for better synergy when it comes to shaping the curricula of engineering programmes. However, it is relevant to mention that the responsibility of soft skill development does not lie solely on the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) - according to a study conducted by Coleman [12] 67% of engineering students surveyed consider that all parties involved in a person’s education bear this responsibility, while only 8% considered that HEIs alone were responsible for this development.

Another sign of this lack of synergy between academia and industry appears when analysing their opinions regarding the skills gap. Surveys show that while members of academia consider teamwork as the most important skill that students must develop before they start a career [13], industry representatives consider that teamwork is only marginally lacking from engineering graduates. In the point of view of the industry, the skills which are lacking the most are leadership and managerial skills, as well as business acumen.

Fig. 4: Results of the BEST Market Research University Survey - “Which soft skills do you consider the most important for students to develop during their studies” [13]

All educational activities in Aalborg University (Denmark) involve problem-based project work, which consists of a set of principles that constitute the Aalborg model of problem-based learning (PBL). The approach is internationally recognised and has, over the years, received great interest from universities, researchers and students in Denmark as well as abroad. The Aalborg model includes project work based on authentic problems, self-governed group work and collaboration [15].

According to the model, students learn best when applying theory and research based knowledge in their work with an authentic problem. At the same time, the model endorses students in the development of their communication and cooperation competences, and in acquiring the skills required when taking an analytical and result-oriented approach [15].

The cooperation between The University of Maryland and Northrop Grumman [16] is one good example from the USA which shows how universities and companies can work together in order to close the skills gap. Northrop Grumman established an honour programme at the university’s College Park campus in 2012. They are providing guest lecturers, career advisers and mentoring support for the selected students of the programme.

In Australia, Swinburne University's Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship students are paired with overseas peers and work as teams for two weeks to generate genuine project proposals with measurable outcomes. [17] These programmes motivate and develop crucial employability skills of the University students. In the University of Monash masters students engage in compulsory group work to develop soft skills. [18]

Fig. 5: Results of the IET 2016 Skills Survey [10] - Skills that engineering graduates lack

It is also interesting to look at how this compares to the opinions of the students on the same topic. Based on the surveys conducted by BEST over the past 10 years [2,5,6,7,8], it seems clear that students feel that soft skills are of the utmost importance in the quest to improve their employability.

This notion has remained constant over time, and the students do not consider that they cannot develop those skills solely through their technical education (from EoE Riga: 67% of students consider that technical universities are lacking in soft skills, and 33% consider that the technical skills alone are not enough to find a job). The technical students’ perspective on the skills gap issue seems to be aligned with the industry point of view, in the sense that 21st century engineers have to be ready to perform in areas that require certain skills that are beyond the traditional scope of engineering education. As such, there is a clear need for solutions to solve this issue and better prepare the engineers of tomorrow.

Universities all over the world are making efforts to provide the necessary skills in different ways. It is interesting to compare different approaches of tackling the skills gap issue from universities in Europe with the ones outside.

In Europe, one of the most common types of universitiesbusiness cooperation is in the curriculum development [19].

These successful cases indicate that such cooperation can be a possible solution to the skills gap.

V. CONCLUSION The three stakeholders feel a ‘Skills Gap’ in the current education system. According to different sources a solution is highly related with an interdisciplinary curriculum and also with a closer relationship between academia, universities and companies. An interdisciplinary curriculum will include basic knowledge in economics and management, presentation, knowledge of more foreign languages, team-work, good communication and leadership skills. A closer relationship can be obtained by job fairs, web tools and platforms, joint programmes and, lastly, conferences and symposia, although these can be improved to achieve better efficiency.

The creation of joint programmes is an example of synergy as universities and companies cooperate in order to establish a curriculum that is adequate to the needs of all stakeholders.

The responsibility of soft skill development does not lie solely on the Higher Education Institutions. Thus, all stakeholders involved in education have to strive for better synergy when it comes to shaping the curricula of engineering programmes.

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