The Association of Quality Economics publishes a new report on accreditation and economics education.
Building on its informative report on the higher education accreditation landscape, AQE has published its 2nd report, Shifting the Dial on Economics Education: creating meaningful change through accreditation.
Written in collaboration between a professional economist, an economics student, and a recent graduate, the report reflects AQE’s collaborative approach to learning and leading change in the economics discipline.
The report starts by giving an overview of the issues in economics from significant diversity issues across all areas of structural disadvantage, including gender, racial, geographic, and class-based disparities in access to economics education and progression throughout the discipline. The report also highlights other issues, such as sustained student dissatisfaction with their courses and how well they prepare them to understand and have an impact on the complexity of today’s world and its challenges. Alongside students, employers were found to consistently report gaps in economics graduates' skill base, finding that they lack key skills, from critical thinking to applying knowledge to the real world.
Having given an insightful overview of the secondary literature on the problems and potential of undergraduate economics education, the report shares the findings of our student survey. Through the survey, AQE heard about students' aspirations and how they felt their course prepared them to tackle issues that they cared about. We also heard about how students access career information and about their interest in and what they would want from a membership body.
Encouragingly, our survey finds a significant interest from students in being part of a membership body and accredited courses. 64% of respondents said they would find course accreditation appealing, with only 1% saying they would find this unappealing. Additionally, 84% of respondents said they would consider joining a membership body for economics, and only 2% said this is something they would not consider.
AQE is committed to collaboration with and championing of student voices within economics education. The survey revealed particular student interest in careers support, therefore we are focusing our early student membership offering around access to careers education and support. Careers advice was the most popular member benefit, with other careers-related benefits such as mentoring and networking also scoring highly in the survey results. As well as meeting student demand, this focus may also help tackle some of the more structural issues within the discipline. Highlighting pathways into a broader range of careers that may stereotypically be associated with economics is part of AQE’s wider work, supporting economics to appeal to and engage a more diverse range of students and graduates.
The report outlines how AQE, through both its membership offering and degree accreditation work, can play a part in tackling the highlighted issues within the discipline. Especially accreditation has the potential to be a significant vehicle for change, giving AQE the opportunity to support positive curriculum change and embedding of best practice around skills development and inclusion across accredited courses and modules. Initially, this work will centre around embedding the QAA's Subject Benchmark Statement for Economics, which focuses on these skills and inclusion gaps, and was broadly well received across the discipline but is yet to be widely implemented.
Over the longer term, AQE will develop a responsive accreditation that centres its members’ voices to ensure economics education continues to support the discipline to thrive in the face of new challenges. For now, we are focusing on acting on the findings of the report and working to ensure AQE is a force for good in the economics discipline.
You can read our report in full at this link.
We hope you enjoy.