This paper explores the implications for higher education of the emergence of new industries, driven by technological changes. The pace of technology-driven changes creates significant challenges for the alignment between the skill needs of industry and provision by higher education. Drawing on concepts from neo-correspondence theory, we examine…

This article analyses online job advertisements to identify skills that are demanded in selected low- and medium-skilled occupations. We explore data from the publicly administered cross-European EURES job search portal and quantify the different cognitive and non-cognitive skills requested by employers in small European economies. While we find…

Although Critical Thinking (CT) has been a desirable aim expressed both by higher education institutions and labour market professionals, studies on what CT means and what it looks like in the workplace are scarce. The current study intends to tackle this gap by sharing findings about the importance of CT and its practical manifestation in…

Ireland's program of specific skills training (SST) Objective 1 courses, which are designed to train/retrain the labor force required for implementation of Ireland's Industry and Services Operational Programme, was evaluated by analyzing program expenditure reports and participant profiles, surveying a random sample of 101 employers, and visiting…

A study examined European Social Fund (ESF)-funded middle-level technician (MLT) and higher technical and business skills (HTBS) courses at Irish technical colleges. Data were obtained from the following: review of relevant literature; review of all program-monitoring documents submitted by Ireland's Department of Education since 1990; interviews…