COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HIGHER EDUCATIONAL AND LABOUR MARKET

本研究利用在11个欧洲国家和日本进行的大学毕业生调查数据，分析了高等教育与毕业生就业过渡之间的关系。近年来，由于种种原因，高等教育与工作的关系在发达国家引起了相当大的关注。在过去的十年里，日本和欧洲国家的高等教育入学率都有所提高，这被称为“大众化”或“普及化”。另一方面，知识经济和社会经济全球化得到了发展。其次，对人力资源的要求、招聘方式和毕业生的职业发展都在发生变化。因此，欧洲和日本的研究小组联合对拥有第一学位的毕业生进行了比较研究。最后，在1999年获得了35,000多名毕业生的数据。本研究项目分三步进行；1)评估12个国家毕业生转型结果的各种模糊维度；2)把握高等教育经历的多样性；3)用高等教育经历的各种因素，包括国家语境差异的多层次指标来解释转型结果。本文的分析重点是由日本所关注的大学毕业生在毕业后的职业活动中似乎没有很好地运用在大学学习期间获得的知识。从这项研究中可以得出几点考虑。首先，日本毕业生在就业顺利度方面的转型效果优于欧洲毕业生，但在知识利用方面的转型效果较差。其次，日本毕业生入学年龄更小，完成学业的时间更短，与许多欧洲国家的毕业生相比，他们在学习前和学习期间的工作经验都更少。第三，日本知识利用水平较低的主要原因是学习期间的工作经验较少和毕业年龄较低。从这些发现来看，在日本，鼓励包括实习项目在内的高等教育中的工作经验，并仔细评估大学毕业生所拥有的能力，以及在他们职业生涯的下一个阶段有用的能力，似乎是非常重要的。少

Utilising university graduates survey data conducted in eleven Europe countries and Japan, this research has analyzed the relationship between higher education and graduates' transition to work. In recent years, the relationship between higher education and work has attracted considerable attention in developed countries due to several circumstances. The enrolment ratio in higher education has increased in Japan as well as in European countries during the last decade, which is expressed as "massification" or "universalisation". On the other hand, the knowledge-based economy and socio-economic globalisation have developed. Then the requirements for human resource, the recruitment practices and the graduates' careers are changing.Thus European and Japanese researchers groups have jointly conducted a comparative study of graduates with the first degree. Finally, more than 35,000 graduates data were obtained in 1999. This research project proceeds as three steps ; 1) evaluating various dim … More ensions of transition outcomes of twelve countries' graduates, 2) grasping the varieties of higher education experiences and 3) explaining the transition outcomes by various factors of higher education experiences, including multi-level indexes of country's contextual differences. The focus of this analysis are consisted deeply from Japanese concerns, how university graduates are seeming not to use well knowledge acquired during university study in the occupational activities after graduation.Several considerations can be drawn from this study. First, Japanese graduates show better transition outcomes in terms of smoothness to find employment than European counterparts, but worse in terms of the knowledge utilization. Secondly, Japanese graduates have enrolled at younger age and finished in shorter duration of study, with fewer work experiences both before and during study than many European countries' graduates. Thirdly, the low levels of knowledge utilization in Japan are mostly explained by both the fewer work experiences during the study and the younger graduation age. From these findings, it seems quite important in Japan to encourage work experiences in higher education including internship programs, and to evaluate carefully the competences which university graduates are bearing and would become useful at the further stage of their career. Less