DEVELOPPEMENT DES COMPETENCES ET EMPLOYABILITE DES JEUNES DIPLOMES : ETAT DES LIEUX ET ENJEUX

Abstract

Employability is considered to be one of the purposes of university education, in addition to its traditional missions of research, knowledge production and teaching. This new concern requires that the achievements of students at the end of their studies should be better defined and known in order to discuss their relevance in regard to the requirements of the economic and social world and to find out if they are of a nature that ensure to them an integrationon the employment market.The objective of this article is hardly to evoke the problem of the professionalization of university studies, which remains a subject to be debated and deserves special attention, but to propose a line of reflection which combines the objectives of the professionalization of university studies with a redefinition of content and training courses by introducing a pedagogical and didactic dynamic.This educational renewal proposes a new conception of training in terms of expected knowledge and skills, whether specific or general, but also a review of assessment practices. In a knowledge-based economy, students must prepare for a wide variety of jobs and increasingly demanding employers, knowing that the public sector - the historic employer of university graduates - has given way to the private sector which employs more and more while requiring a quality training which would constitute, in its eyes, the pledge of a capacity of adaptation to new and unpredictable situations(Hutmacher, 2001).Thus, the definition and the developmentof students skills, facing an uncertain and diverse professional future, are of interest to both educators and professionals.