An integrated approach of the graduate career tracking system at the University of Pécs

The Graduate Career Tracking System (GCTS) is an obligatory task of the Hungarian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in order to survey students and graduates. It aims to provide the HEI institutions with a useful tool, on the one hand, for following the labor-market career paths of former students, which helps to understand the areas to develop, and on the other, for receiving feedback from current students on the quality of the formation. The connection between the HEI and the labor market is essential, but the fact that the GCTS is only a tool, not a scope, has to be considered. Therefore, it is a small part of a more integrated approach for creating a student service system helping them to understand their needs, opportunities and necessary actions they need to take in order to become skilled, competent and flexible participants of the labor market. The University of Pécs has a 5-year-long history of the GCTS. This study will focus on the changes of the recent years, the expansion of the targeted groups, the creation of communication and developments of different services, based on the results. It is important that the methodology should deeply be understood; thus, the GCTS model will be discussed together with the interpretation of the single elements of the process. The implementation is the first step to create this system, but when stakeholders are concerned, communication is the key factor because the final goal is to achieve a higher level of knowledge dissemination and create ‘Student’ and ‘Lecturer’ information packages in order to help students achieve their goals.