A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book
Social Justice and Neoliberalising Cameroonian Universities in Pursuit of the Bologna Process: An Analysis of the Employability Agenda
Authors: Eta Elizabeth Agbor
Editors: Iryna Kushnir, Elizabeth Agbor Eta
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
Publication year: 2023
Book title : Towards Social Justice in the Neoliberal Bologna Process
Journal name in sourceTowards Social Justice in the Neoliberal Bologna Process
First page : 149
Last page: 168
ISBN: 978-1-80117-881-5
eISBN: 978-1-80117-880-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-880-820231008
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-880-820231008
This chapter presents a case of the adoption of the Bologna Process (BP) outside the boundaries of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) – in Cameroon. The adoption of the BP lines of action has triggered higher education (HE) reforms in Cameroon including reforms to enhance graduate employability. In Cameroon, graduate employability is promoted through ‘professionalisation’ of degree programmes – which seeks to prepare students with employment-ready skills and competences capable of adapting to the fast and highly competitive global economy either as job seekers or job creators. With the use of policy documents, existing literature and interviews with policymakers and university officials, this chapter examines the framing of employability from the perspective of social justice and neoliberal discourses. The analysis highlights the idea that while the overall goal is to promote social justice by enhancing the employability skills of all graduates to gain employment through a diverse set of employability pathways, some of the pathways are dominated by neoliberal ideologists discussed in this chapter via mode of governance, commodifying training and commodifying access. The different focuses and operationalisation of social justice and neoliberalism reveal tension as social justice emphasises training for all while neoliberalism emphasises training only for those students with the purchasing power.