Eurodoc joined the Commission Expert Group on Graduate Tracking, which was established to provide a forum for cooperation and mutual learning about graduate tracking methods and graduate data analysis and its impact on policy developments in the MSs as well as to assist the Commission in relation to the implementation of existing Union legislation, programmes and policies, the Council Recommendation on Graduate Tracking foremost.
Eurodoc representative Iryna Degtyarova, Advisory Board Member, took part in the 1st meeting of the Expert Group, which took place on 8th October 2018 in Brussels in DG EAC.
Eurodoc acts as a grassroots federation of national associations for doctoral candidates and junior researchers from 28 countries in Europe, considers, that if doctoral candidates form the 3rd education cycle of the Bologna Process, it is critical PhD graduates to be tracked within any graduate tracking system, either on national and European level.
In the nearest time EC will pilot the first European-wide graduate tracking survey in selected group of countries (Norway, Lithuania, Germany, Austria, Malta, Czech Republic, Croatia, Greece) for ISCED 6, 7 and 5 (if higher education, as there is a high demand of trace VET graduates). Survey covers the following topics: labour market relevance (including job satisfaction), skills (new skills agenda), explanatory factors (personal, higher education history, extracurricular experience), mobility (place of living, causes of mobility), democratic values (attitudes towards Europe, active citizenship, success of further study, reasons), further education (transition from BA to MA, from MA to PhD).
Eurodoc considers graduate tracking a very important national and European-wide initiative to improve quality of teaching and learning as well as quality of training PhDs to increase their employability and make their career chances better, and to have relevant picture of socio-economic situation of European graduates.
We are strongly encouraging Eurodoc members to contribute national initiatives and activities on graduate tracking in member states and to join national boards of stakeholders on graduate tracking, as well as to promote including doctoral graduates to the systems of graduate tracking both on the national level and EU-level.
Iryna Degtyarova, Advisory Board Member