Search Results for
"Higher education"

Vocational education and training (VET) programs in Sweden blend classroom instruction and internships, while coding bootcamps offer accelerated adult education in computer science. These institutions increasingly teach in English, mirroring the shift towards English-medium Instruction (EMI) in higher education. Consequently, most EMI scholarship is focused on higher education. This paper investigates how ten Swedish EMI schools are discursively constructed on their webpages, employing reflective thematic analysis to uncover three primary themes: the schools’ affinity with success, the uniqueness of their students, and the schools’ teaching methods. The analysis reveals the schools’ strong affinities with the neoliberal language and ideology, suggesting an alignment with the discourse of academic capitalism in higher and vocational EMI contexts. This paper discusses the similarities and differences in the dominance of neoliberal language and ideology in both educational settings, highlighting broader implications for critical education. © 2025 Institute for Critical education Studies. All rights reserved.

Graduate employability remains a crucial challenge for higher education institutions, especially in developing economies. This study investigates the key academic and vocational factors influencing early employment outcomes among recent graduates at a public university in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region. By leveraging predictive analytics, the research explores how data-driven approaches can enhance career readiness strategies. The analysis employed AI-driven models, particularly classification and regression trees (CARTs), using a dataset of 610 recent graduates from a public university in the Mekong Delta to predict early employability. The input factors included gender, field of study, university entrance scores, and grade point average (GPA) scores for four university years. The output factor was recent graduates’ (un)employment within six months after graduation. Among all input factors, third-year GPA, university entrance scores, and final-year academic performance are the most significant predictors of early employment. Among the tested models, CARTs achieved the highest accuracy (93.6%), offering interpretable decision rules that can inform curriculum design and career support services. This study contributes to the intersection of artificial intelligence and vocational education by providing actionable insights for universities, policymakers, and employers, supporting the alignment of education with labor market demands and improving graduate employability outcomes. © 2025 by the authors.

Micro-credentials (MCs) emerged as a powerful tool to advance employability and lifelong learning while opening opportunities for diverse career directions for individuals. They are generally short programmes and have a specific focus on developing complementary skills in a particular area of interest for the learner. This paper presents a critical narrative review exploring the transformative potential of micro-credentials, which provide targeted, flexible, and accessible pathways for skill development and career advancement. It examines how micro-credentials bridge the gap between traditional education and modern industry demands and recognises the importance of collaborative efforts between higher education and industry in identifying and sometimes even co-designing relevant micro-credential programmes. Additionally, the paper analyses the impact of micro-credential programmes on non-traditional learners and discusses the mechanisms to ensure the quality and credibility of such programmes. The findings highlight four key thematic areas, revealing that micro-credentials serve as flexible, inclusive tools that enhance employability, support institutional innovation, and promote lifelong learning. © 2025 by the authors.

In recent years, entrepreneurial learning in higher education institutions has been promoted and supported to help students become job creators rather than job seekers. The main purpose of entrepreneurial learning is to develop entrepreneurial competencies in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes to attain the entrepreneurial goal of new value creation. This value extends beyond only economic value and job creation; it can, therefore, also benefit students who do not become entrepreneurs but who choose to think entrepreneurially. However, an enduring problem is ensuring that the entrepreneurial learning process is interactive, effective, and meaningful to the students. Correspondingly, self-directed learning (SDL) can be used in higher education to enhance entrepreneurial learning. This paper discusses the analyses of the role and importance of self-directed learning in the process of entrepreneurial learning for students in higher education institutions, informed by an exploratory systematic literature review. The findings reveal that SDL can play an important role in enhancing entrepreneurial learning by initiating the learning process to develop students’ entrepreneurial skills, mindset, motivation, creativity, and innovation, which serve as competencies for success as entrepreneurial thinkers. Based on the findings, the author concludes that SDL plays an important role in enhancing entrepreneurial learning in higher education institutions. Adopting SDL as a key strategy for teaching and learning in higher education can improve the effectiveness of entrepreneurial learning and help develop students into entrepreneurial thinkers. The practical implications are that the use of SDL in entrepreneurial learning can develop a spirit of creativity, create value on several levels, and empower students to become job creators instead of job seekers as higher education institutions prepare them for life after graduation. © 2025 by the author.

Exploring the potential of text-to-image generation technology in Taiwanese vocational high school art courses, this study employs a conceptual framework of technology integration, creative thinking, and metacognitive abilities, focusing on its effects on teaching strategies as well as students’ digital art creation skills and cognitive and creative development. The study was conducted through a multi-methodological approach that includes a systematic literature review plus participatory action research and qualitative analysis. The results showed that integrating text-to-image technology with education boosted students’ interest in activities such as prompt design and project creation and suited themes like landscapes and conceptual art. Testing AI tools enhanced technical proficiency (average of 3.95/5), while pedagogy shifted to project-based learning, increasing engagement. Students’ digital art skills improved from 3.26 to 3.78 (16% growth), with creativity and originality (3.82/5), style diversity, visual complexity, and divergent thinking notably advanced. The technology also fostered metacognitive skills and critical thinking, proving to be an effective teaching aid beyond a mere digital tool. This discovery provides a fresh theoretical viewpoint and instructional procedures for high school art education curricula, anchored in technology, and highlights the importance of nurturing students’ innovativeness and adaptability within the contemporary digital age. © 2025 by the authors.

Language plays a central role in shaping the internationalization of higher education, particularly in non-Anglophone contexts such as China. This systematic review examines how language functions as both a medium and a symbol in China’s evolving internationalization agenda, drawing on literature published between 2014 and 2024 from Scopus, Web of Science, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. Guided by five thematic research questions, the review explores the role of English, the promotion of Mandarin as a global language, multilingual practices in internationalized universities, the influence of language policy on academic mobility, and the tension between linguistic nationalism and globalization. The findings reveal that while English remains the dominant language for academic communication and policy implementation, its effectiveness is often hindered by gaps between institutional goals and pedagogical realities. At the same time, Mandarin is strategically promoted as a vehicle of cultural diplomacy, contributing to China’s soft power while complicating language planning for international students. Multilingual practices, though under-recognized, are prevalent in classrooms and informal interactions, indicating a need for more inclusive language policies. Language proficiency requirements serve as both enablers and barriers to academic mobility, depending on institutional support and policy alignment. The review concludes that sustainable internationalization in China requires a more balanced and context-sensitive language strategy that embraces linguistic diversity while supporting academic equity. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed. © © 2025 by the author(s).

Millions of young Africans earn a variety of qualifications annually, yet the majority return without prospects for employment. This challenge has become a catalyst for inequality, poverty, crime involvement, and international migration. Empirical discourse points to education—such as a pedagogy that is chiefly theory-oriented rather than aligned with a knowledge economy, mismatched skills, and irrelevant qualifications—as constraints that contribute to the unemployment of the continent’s vibrant young graduates. Amidst this surging issue, the call for transformation in higher learning has never been clearer. Focusing on rural landscapes, this case study analysed the contextual employability potential of graduates pursuing an entrepreneurial university trajectory in Africa, illustrating why the paradigm should be implemented. The findings, based on qualitative data collected using a semi-structured questionnaire through one-on-one and remote approaches from stakeholders in universities across five African countries, highlight three dimensions central to this pathway. These include (1) curriculum alignment to advance cutting-edge qualifications and skill development that resonate with industrial demand and local economic priorities; (2) stakeholder embeddings in which universities strive to partner with local organisations and established alumni to provide mentorship, job leads, and referrals; and (3) innovation hubs that offer a variety of entrepreneurial support, real-world experience, and Indigenous entrepreneurship practices, leading to unique new ventures and employment opportunities. Implementing this strategy will enable rural-based universities in Africa to innovate in promoting graduate employability, socioeconomic advancements, and sustainable development, ultimately shaping a brighter future for the continent. Further studies could test the assumptions for broader application using statistical analysis. © 2025 by the author.

Traditional lectures in architectural engineering often fall short of effectively conveying practical applications. This study introduces a hybrid teaching approach that integrates structured field trips with traditional lectures based on Kolb’s four-step experiential learning cycle to address this. An experimental design was implemented to assess the impact of this method on achieving core Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs). Using SPSS, independent-sample t-tests, and one-way ANOVA, we compared CLO scores across intervention groups, student seniority levels, and field trip frequency. At the same time, multiple linear regression analyses were used to analyze the influence of students’ attitudes, prior experiences, and enjoyment on the CLO scores. CLO achievement was further validated through the Course Learning Outcome Analysis Tool (COAT). The findings reveal that students exposed to field trips performed significantly better, particularly freshmen and junior students, who showed greater knowledge gains than their senior peers. Additionally, a higher frequency of trips was associated with improved academic performance, and students’ positive attitudes, prior exposure, and enjoyment of field trips positively influenced their CLO outcomes. These results underscore the effectiveness of integrating experiential learning into architectural engineering education, offering a compelling supplement to conventional lectures and addressing the limitations of traditional instructional methods by fostering deeper, more meaningful student engagement and learning. © 2025 by the authors.