Lecturer and student perceptions of employability skills at a transnational university

This is an EdD Institution Focused Study which investigates, in a localised context, lecturers’ and students’ understanding of the concepts and language underpinning Higher Education strategies of developing employability skills. The context is Westminster International University, Tashkent (WIUT), a transnational university in Uzbekistan. In the 21st century it has become widely recognised that employability skills are a valuable asset that graduates must acquire to secure graduate level employment. The embedding of employability skills into course and curriculum design is aimed at reducing the perceived shortfall in the ability of graduates to perform tasks needed in the workplace. While a solid grounding in discipline-specific knowledge and skills is what most graduate degrees aim at providing, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) Employer Skills Survey 2011 ranked employability skills as the most important factor when evaluating job applicants. The forces of internationalisation and globalisation mean that employers the world over are looking for graduates with additional skills in areas such as social intelligence, cross-cultural competency and transdisciplinarity. Using an interpretive and constructivist system of qualitative data analysis, this study will generate new perspectives on the concept of employability skills, with implications for practitioners in transnational educational institutions.