Badges May Provide Job Credentials For College Graduates
By Dr. Marciene Mattleman
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Employers say they are "sick of encountering" new college grads without job skills. And colleges are "sick of hearing" that their alumni aren't employable.
The concern in about a half dozen universities in the Washington DC area is the acceptability of workplace badges.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that there has been a movement in the past few years for badges and other forms of "microcredentials" at a time when nine out of ten students report that their main reason for going to college is to get a good job.
In the next nine months, teams from "21st Century Skills Badging Challenge," comprised of employers and outside experts will identify elements that underlie skills - like leadership, storytelling and an entrepreneurial mind-set and find ways to assess students' proficiency. They will then get outside organizations to validate those skills that carry weight with employers.
The badges will incorporate skills known as the C's - critical thinking, creativity and collaboration. It will be interesting to see if this effort starts a trend.