1. Acquisition, Role and Value of Higher Education Competencies Christoph Meng Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market Maastricht University

2. Agenda Competencies: Concept Recent Surveys Academic or Discipline-specific Required Competencies Acquired Competencies Role and Value of Competencies Acquisition of Competencies Concluding Remarks

3. Competencies Distinction between competency and skill Group of skills Referring to a single underlying dimension Condition to fulfill complex tasks

4. Recent Surveys CHEERS –3 years after graduation –Survey in 1998/1999 –European countries + Japan REFLEX –5 years after graduation –Survey in 2005/2006 –European countries + Japan

5. Competencies Discipline-specific Theoretical knowledge Knowledge of methods Academic Learning abilities Reflective thinking Problem-solvingAnalyticalDocumenting

6. Requirements

7. Requirements

8. Requirements

9. Requirements

10. Competencies Requirements and ILM versus OLM

12. Acquisition

13. Acquisition

14. Acquisition

15. Competencies Acquisition and ILM versus OLM

16. Role of Competencies OLM countries –Allocation: Discipline-specific competencies –Training: Academic competencies –Wage: Mismatch in discipline-specific competencies ILM countries –Allocation: no effect –Training: Academic competencies –Wage: Mismatch in academic competencies (UK)

17. Acquisition

18. Acquisition AcademicDiscipline-specific Traditional style REF.REF. School-class0+ PBL without teacher +0 PBL with teacher ++

19. Acquisition AcademicDiscipline-specific Formal Education (-)+ Self study ++ Extra-curricular00 Work0- Study-related work ++

20. Concluding remarks Institutional setting –Competencies requirements –Orientation of acquisition of competencies –Role of competencies in transition to labor market Acquisition of competencies –Role of learning environment

21. The Bachelor/Master system provides HE institutes in the NL and the UK with the same wrapping paper.

22. The Bachelor/Master system provides HE institutes in the NL and the UK with the same wrapping paper. However, when the Dutch employees open their present, they will realize that Sinterklaas (5 th of dec.) still shops in a different place than Santa Claus (24 th of dec.)