Our university challenge
Degrees are no longer a ‘‘right of passage’’ to employment, putting universities at a crossroads. reports.
Reidy
Employers are no longer looking at universities as the ‘‘single source of knowledge,’’ crippling institutions’ long-standing honour.
But Auckland University of Technology vice-chancellor Derek McCormack is adamant that degrees remain valuable and the shift in employers’ mindset will not cause their demise.
McCormack said universities were more than an ‘‘employee mill’’. Their diverse social construct taught students to cooperate, think critically and to care, he said.
This week 100 employers including Fonterra, Spark and ASB, signed NZTalent’s open letter to the public announcing they did not hire based on qualifications.
The organiser of the letter, Mind Lab founder Frances Valentine, said the letter’s purpose was to change the perception about what it means to be talented today.
‘‘This letter recognises we have evolved from a single education model, or a single path to employment success.’’
She said before the letter, there was a disconnect between the reality of how much businesses used formal qualifications as a key criteria for hiring.
School leavers often thought jobs were off-limits to them because they were without a university qualification, limiting businesses talent pool.
‘‘The decision to remove qualifications from a wide range of skilled jobs was responding to today’s employment needs and the desire to see human potential, without assuming it all comes from a single source of formal knowledge.’’
Recruitment company Hays New Zealand managing director Jason Walker said getting a university degree no longer guaranteed you were going to ‘‘make it’’ in the workforce.
Walker said degrees were once thought of as a ‘‘right of passage to employment’’ but times, and employers’ criteria, had changed.
He said businesses wanted to recruit people with a good attitude, aptitude and the ability to adapt. A degree did not promote those characteristics any better than work experience did.
‘‘We are not seeing a significant difference in those skills from nondegree and degree-qualified candidates.’’ The Hays Global Skills Index
released on Tuesday suggested New Zealand students did not match the needs of employers.
It measured the flexibility of New Zealand’s education system as worse than Australia and the United Kingdom.
Walker said New Zealand’s 4.7 out of 10 flexibility rating was not bad, but universities needed to better collaborate with industries to stay abreast of the needed from graduates.
Neuroscientist Kerry Spackman agreed that industries needed to be more involved in creating curriculums.
’’What you really need to do is listen to the industry and have them drive it,’’ Spackman said.
‘‘We think of education as being run by the Ministry of Education. In many ways that model needs to be turned upside down.’’
Spackman said education from primary to post-doctorate level needed a ‘‘real big revamp’’ to connect students to the ‘‘bigger picture’’.
He said they needed to learn to learn, not be taught how to memorise and recite facts and formulas.
McCormack said he was not worried by the decreasing glorification of a university degree.
‘‘But, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe universities will disappear completely.’’
He said the shift could see the introduction of six to eight-weeklong courses.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe universities will disappear completely. AUT vice-chancellor Derek McCormack
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