ADULT LEARNERS' EXPECTATIONS OF LEARNING TRANSFERABLE SKILLS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The European labor market is constantly evolving. The competences and skills that are needed to be or become successful in the labor market change over time. In order to deal with these challenges people need to be equipped with a variety of transferable skills.

However, there are no well-known or generally accepted frameworks for transferable skills. The time and/or volume necessary to acquire transferable skills varies between different curricula. Similarly, there is no mutual understanding of whether transferable skills are even worthy of being separately addressed and what kind of transferable skills should be a separate school subject or topic and what deserve and need a whole module. There is also the question of which transferable skills should be obtained throughout the whole curriculum and which skills can be dismissed by institutions of higher education.

The authors’ aim is to identify the importance of transferable skills in working life and adult learners’ expectations for the recognition of transferable skills into the curricula of professional higher education.

The authors formed the list and descriptions of transferable skills as the basis for the questionnaire/instrument according to seven different transferable skills frameworks/models: European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations Classification (ESCO), Estonian Entrepreneurial Competencies Model (EETA), service based transferable skills framework of Glasgow University, Transferable Skills Framework of Leicester University, Employers’ Demands for Personal Transferable Skills in Graduates (Roger Bennett), Tuning Educational Structures in Europe Generic Competences, Phoenix University Future Work Skills.

The sample of the study includes all the first-year students of Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences (the average age of 28 years). We have found that the students’ expectations of studying transferable skills in higher education are high, but balance between transferable and job-specific skills depends on the specialization.

The results can be used for curriculum development and faculty training in methodological skills development.

This longitudinal study will be conducted over 4 years. In the future it is possible to understand how such expectations change during the scope of the studies and what are the reasons for such a change.