Introduction

Key skills, which are sometimes equated to "transferable" or "core" skills are receiving a great deal of attention in UK higher education, partly in response to the widening participation of access to higher education and partly to what employers say they are looking for in graduates. Key skills issues are closely related to issues of employability and employability skills and to the concept of graduateness. This section of Deliberations initially began out as a discussion of graduateness, which was an attempt to describe those attributes a graduate should possess that go beyond the subject of the degree awarded. Discussion of graduate standards must be seen in the context of the move in the UK towards benchmarking academic standards by the UK's Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).

Resource Materials

• What Are Graduates - Clarifying the Attributes of Graduateness - A paper by the UK Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) to stimulate discussion on the subject. The functions of the HEQC have since been taken over by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education
• Students Views on Graduate Standards - Report of a survey carried out among students at London Guildhall University in 1995.
• What is a Graduate? A consultation exercise with students - Report of a study conducted in 1996 with students at five UK universities.

Readers' Comments: A lively and continuous process of debate on learning and teaching in higher education is a key aim of Deliberations. We invite you to share your thoughts on this topic with other readers. Comments are posted in the comments archive.