Employability and competencies of Bachelors in Italy

Since 60% of Italian Bachelor graduates enroll immediately in a Master programme, the public often assumes that this is a consequence of very limited employment opportunities for these graduates. We show that this is contradicted by existing data on the employment rate of graduates that show a small difference in the employment rates of Bachelor and Master graduates. Bachelors who only looked for a job right after graduation have a high rate of employment, while many of those who enrolled in a Master programme are also working. However, employers often remark that university graduates are well prepared in their disciplines, but lack general competences. By analyzing the responses to a questionnaire sent to heads of university programmes, we investigated the general competences indicated as learning outcomes in the curricula offered by Italian universities. We present here some of our results.