Global Career Compass
Leveraging Education Abroad for Student Career Development & Employability
On equal access to college & employment opportunity
Why write about the fact that white births are falling behind those of non-whites in the U.S.? http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/white-births-no-longer-a-majority-in-u-s/30154?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
I’m afraid the inequality of public education at the K-12 level for poor youths of color has, and will continue to, impact their attainment of further schooling for a long time to come. So the economic impact will be felt as these youths are ill-prepared to enter the workforce in coming decades. And their numbers in our higher ed institutions will not be equal to their % of the population.
I’ve expressed a concern about unequal access to ed abroad and this demographic story is not a good sign of what lies ahead for our educational institutions and for our society.
A Purposeful Plan to Integrate Study Abroad & Career Development
CEA Global Education has developed a unique and integrated approach to assist students understand how to “.. examine critical strategies for personal and career success in a global marketplace while evaluating personal skills, interests and strengths. Students learn first-hand what it means to be globally competent through reflection upon the interaction between culture and communication and the global workplace” http://www.gowithcea.com/students/academic/career_development.html
Called the Global Career Development Certificate, I believe it is the only such program offered by a study abroad provider organization. Full disclosure: as a consultant, I helped CEA create its initial career development framework. The program is optional for students on several of their European campuses and is offered for one credit. Like a solid academic course, it outlines expected learning objectives and defines specific competencies as outcomes of the program.
I’ve advocated that such an approach – developed as a fully integrated program of reflective learning in the classroom coupled with opportunities for experiential learning – is the optimal approach to prepare students to make the most of their study abroad experience.
CEA’s purposeful structured learning experience in-country will prepare students to return to campus ready to “unpack” their time abroad. And it will enable students to successfully articulate what they learned in a meaningful way during both informational networking interviews and actual job interviews before they graduate.
For more ideas on preparing students for their study abroad program experience – from a campus perspective – see my AIFS Student Guide to Study Abroad and Career Development:
http://www.aifsabroad.com/advisors/pdf/Tillman_AIFS_Student_Guide_Career.pdf
UK Report Seeks to Increase Outward Mobility of British Students
A new report stresses the importance to the UK economy of sending more students to study and work abroad: http://news.bis.gov.uk/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=424336&NewsAreaId=2
Universities and Science Minister David Willetts said:“Study abroad offers a huge range of benefits for students taking part, and also for our universities and the wider UK economy. Students improve their employability, institutions develop their international links and businesses value the wider experience of those who’ve spent time abroad. It’s a win-win for all. The number of UK students taking overseas placements has been low. Today’s report and our new funding arrangements will help address this gap.”
Right.
Role of Community Colleges & Global Workforce Development
IIE hosted a recent Summit on the Occasion of the G8, entitled “International Education: A Global Economic Engine” which brought together more than 30 high level delegates from 15 countries and the EU in Washington, DC on May 2 and 3, to engage in a hands-on discussion of national priorities and educational cooperation among nations, with the goal of making international education a pillar of binational and multilateral engagement.
Global mobility in higher education – the exchange of students and scholars – is an economic engine that fuels the economy of both home and host countries, keeps our universities vibrant and competitive, and prepares the future workforce to meet global challenges. International education is a multi-billion dollar industry that is a major service-sector “export”. But more importantly, it fosters innovation and strengthens commercial and diplomatic ties between nations.
“The community college system is of great interest” in U.S. efforts to promote international education, U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter told the delegates. http://www.communitycollegetimes.com/Pages/Campus-Issues/Community-colleges-have-a-major-role-in-global-prosperity.aspx
Nice to read of this renewed interest in the value of our community colleges. As a grad student in India in 1975, I was helpful to our embassy in New Delhi when it hosted the first visiting community college President, Seymour Eskow, from Rockland CC in NYS. At that time, there was ongoing support from the Danish government to promote the concept of its Folk High School movement as a means of educating farmers in south India.
President Obama deserves, I believe, much credit for his administration’s focus – and resource allocation – on our community colleges. The are, and have always been, a gateway to higher education for most minority students in the U.S. And now, in our economic slump. many more middle class families are turning to the system as a way to pay for their children’s college education.
We need to increase educational “gateway” curricular offerings to supply talent in specialized industries and cutting edge technologies. Community colleges are in the forefront of maintaining ties with workforce training needs.
Impact of Vietnamese Students on U.S. Economy
See this Twitter link to a blog post from my colleague, Mark Ashwill, based in Hanoi: http://wp.me/pI5NK-1li .
He writes: The total economic impact of the nearly 15,000 Vietnamese students in 2010/11 was $416 million using information (PDF download) from NAFSA: Association of International Educators. This is an extraordinary sum for a country at Vietnam’s stage of development with a GDP of just over $120 billion in 2011. (In case you’re counting, the estimated amount spent on study in the USA by Vietnamese families last year equaled .35% of the nation’s GDP.)
Since the above Open Doors statistics include only regionally accredited institutions of higher education and exclude other Vietnamese enrollments (e.g., nationally accredited schools, private boarding schools, most of which are in the 40-50k per year range per year), the total economic impact is considerably higher.
New University Ranking System Tied to Production of Educated Workforce
The Universitas 21 Ranking http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ranking-reveals-worlds-top-countries-for-higher-education-2012-05-10 was announced today (11 May 2012) at an event at Lund University in Sweden. Universitas 21, a leading global network of research universities, has developed the ranking as a benchmark for governments, education institutions and individuals. It aims to highlight the importance of creating a strong environment for higher education institutions to contribute to economic and cultural development, provide a high-quality experience for students and help institutions compete for overseas applicants.
Research authors at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne, looked at the most recent data from 48 countries across 20 different measures. The range of measures is grouped under four headings: resources (investment by government and private sector), output (research and its impact, as well as the production of an educated workforce which meets labour market needs), connectivity (international networks and collaboration which protects a system against insularity) and environment (government policy and regulation, diversity and participation opportunities). Population size is accounted for in the calculations.
Invited by Department of State U.S. Expert’s Program to Deliver Workshops in Zimbabwe
I’m pleased to share news that I’ve received an invitation by the Department of State to deliver a series of workshops, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, to university administrators and faculty, high school guidance counselors and education NGOs to strengthen their abilities to offer career counseling to young people. I will travel to Harare next September 29 through October 6.
The proposal states: Zimbabwe’s educational system is largely a British-based, examination-driven system that no longer meets the needs of the economy, development or workforce in the country. University graduates face a bleak employment scenario and official unemployment remains at over 90%. High school graduates are forced into narrow university disciplines without much thought about career paths that meet their interests and talents. There is a blatant dearth of career guidance or counseling at both the high school and university level. We would like to bring an international career counseling expert to lead workshops to help university, school and government administrators to recognize this problem and begin to take concrete steps to change the situation. This speaker program has two main objectives: 1. To assist Zimbabwean universities to start career advising centers or programs, and 2. To assist counselors at high schools in Zimbabwe to strengthen and broaden the career counseling methods and resources they use with their students.
I welcome comments from anyone who has traveled to Zimbabwe! And certainly from anyone with information about the labor market and higher education system in the country.
I delivered a series of similar workshops for the same DOS program in 2003 in Tbilisi, Georgia.
“Investing” in Students–As Long as They’re Good Wage Earners!
How could I not comment on this idea! http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/03/plan-floated-britain-investors-pay-tuition-and-students-repay-based-income —
Under the plan, a student would sign a contract with a special purpose company, acting for a university or group of universities, to repay a fixed percentage of their earnings over a set number of years. Banks would package the graduate contracts and sell them on to investors, particularly pension funds.
“The sale proceeds will vary based on the market’s perception of the future earnings potential of the group of students,”
Of course this works for investors as long as they somehow can identify students worth the “risk.” Hmmm. But it does appear to guarantee employment – with what the British refer to as “special purpose” companies.
Would U.S. investors buy this idea? Would academic institutions on this side of this side of the pond approve of this novel marketing of their degrees?
Creating Globally Minded STEM Professionals through International Internships/Work Abroad Programs
I participated in an important workshop in Washington this week http://www.iie.org/Who-We-Are/News-and-Events/Events/2012/STEM-Internships-Workshop (all presentations are online at this site). A coalition of education abroad professionals at IIE, NAFSA’s Work, Internship and Volunteer Abroad (WIVA) Subcommittee, and UC-San Diego conducted a 1 ½ day workshop targeted to STEM faculty and staff, Career Services professionals and Education Abroad professionals. The workshop addressed internship and work abroad programs in the STEM fields, specifically creating, maintaining, funding, and assessing these programs.
The need for globally minded and competent Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) professionals in the U.S. has been documented repeatedly in recent years. International internships and work abroad programs provide a means for addressing this need that meets the education and curriculum demands placed on our technical students. Yet few U.S. schools have established such programs or have strong mechanisms for integrating them into the STEM curriculum.
There is no question of the need to widen opportunities for more students to realize the benefits of international work and internship experiences – in all fields. However, the STEM fields offer many opportunities for academic institutions to partner with industry. It’s a win-win venture. The workshop provided a window on best practices around the country.
Book Review: International Students and Global Mobility in Higher Education: National trends and New directions
My reviews appear regularly in the NAFSA International Educator: http://www.nafsa.org/_/File/_/ie_mayjun12_bookreview.pdf.
This is an important book for international educators who wish to look behind the statistics of student flows around the world. The overall data on student flows referenced throughout the book have been widely reported in varied online sources and by IIE in its important Project Atlas Web portal, the Atlas of Student Mobility. And while the impact of the rise in numbers of student flows across borders is well known to International Educator readers, the editors suggest what is new and consequential in their analysis are the “drivers of student mobility and the new modalities through which this migration occurs.” This frames the central focus of the book whose chapters provide campus policymakers and administrators with an in-depth analysis of the political and socioeconomic factors that influence the flow of students from the United States, China, India, Germany, the UK, Australia, Latin America, and selected African nations.
Global Career Compass 