DDCA advocacy and collaboration: Leveraging the data to influence policy and practice

[Extract] Employability is a buzz word and likely to remain so as performance-based funding comes into force, so what is employability in the context of design and the creative arts, and is it beyond the remit of a degree in these disciplines?

There is no short answer because employability as reported within the media, graduate outcomes surveys and so in is almost never employability; rather, it is employment. As Wilton (2011, p. 87) writes, this is nonsensical because it “is possible to be employable, yet unemployed or underemployed”.

Employability within the context of HE relates to the process by which we prepare students to negotiate graduate life and work. This is particularly true in times of economic recession, increased graduate competition and labour market change. For many design and creative arts disciplines, complex and precarious work has been a feature of careers for centuries; we are the experts! And yet we do not perform well in the metrics.

Following discussion at the recent DDCA meeting, this short article sets out strategies with which to challenge current policy, reporting and inaccurate perceptions of creative discipline graduate outcomes through renewed graduate outcomes data and evidence-based advocacy.