If these aren't employability skills I'll eat my hat

By pesbo

In a meeting a few months back I recalled a particular section of the University of Leicester's previous Learning and Teaching Strategy (2006-2009). In the section on 'Aims of undergraduate programmes' it said the following:

Each undergraduate degree programme should enable development, in a discipline context, of a range of personal or transferable skills, including:

• problem solving
• communication skills (written and oral)
• basic numeracy
• team working
• IT skills
• information handling skills
• emerging learning technologies skills
• lifelong learning skills
• employability skills

Which is all very well - but what's 'employability skills' doing at the bottom there? a) as an afterthought and b) as if it doesn't encompass all the items above it in the list? I think things have moved on since then but I think it's an interesting insight into how people sometimes perceive employability - as only to do with CVs and applications and interviews and not with the skills employers are looking for to do the job in the first place, like these.

Any thoughts?