Towards a framework to capture and respond to construction labour market skills

Malalgoda, CI; Siriwardena, ML; Thayaparan, M; Amaratunga, RDG; Lill, I; Witt, E; Kaklauskas, A

Abstract

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as major suppliers of skills and knowledge are expected to fulfill
the labour market skills requirements. However, the capability of HEIs to capture and respond to such
skills requirements faces numerous challenges. BELLCURVE (Built Environment Lifelong Learning
Challenging University Responses to Vocational Education), which is an EU funded research project,
intends to contribute to modernising HEIs to be more responsive to the construction labour market
skills requirements. The project aims to develop a framework to capture and respond to skills
requirements, giving particular attention to lifelong learning and governance reforms. Framework
development is a continuous process which comprises various activities of analysing, altering, refining,
improving and evaluating. To enable the developmental aspect of the BELLCURVE research project, a
design science approach is used as the overall research methodology. An initial framework was
developed based on a literature analysis incorporating three major elements namely skill capture
(demand), education (supply) and HEI governance reform, having the concept of lifelong learning
embedded in each element. Furthermore, when refining the framework, BELLCURVE is primarily
concerned with four types of entities namely Educational; Industrial; Professional; and Learning, and
focuses on two distinct concepts namely “Skill mismatches between requirements and supply” and
“lifelong learning via through-life studentship”. An insight to the process of framework development
including the research methodology adapted is presented in this paper.

Citation

Malalgoda, C., Siriwardena, M., Thayaparan, M., Amaratunga, R., Lill, I., Witt, E., & Kaklauskas, A. (2011, July). Towards a framework to capture and respond to construction labour market skills. Presented at PAQS 2011, Colombo, Sri Lanka

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: PAQS 2011
• Conference Location: Colombo, Sri Lanka
• Start Date: Jul 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: Jul 29, 2011
• Publisher URL: http://www.paqs2011.lk/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference