Abstract:
The universities as training institutions have professional concerns since their medieval origins, given that among their missions it is included the preparation of students to perform professional activities. However, in contemporary times such concerns have been the object of increasing attention and apprehension both in the context of educational policies, as well as for academics and the society as a whole. This situation often conveys the idea that here is the need to rethink higher education following the logic of responding to both quantitative and qualitative needs of the economy and the labour market. The aim of this paper is to enrich the reflexivity about this type of understandings and on their implications in the field of university pedagogy. Thus, the paper's underlying attempt is to identify tensions and challenges within the modes of operation and the curricular and pedagogical models in universities nowadays, reinforcing the importance of fostering an educational perspective on university pedagogy not controlled by the alleged needs of the labour market.
Keywords:
university; higher education; transition to work; employability; pedagogy