University isn’t that important

CITY VIEW

Last Thursday I was sitting in a local coffee shop. At the table beside me a young woman was trying to cheer up her boyfriend because he had not got the A-level results he needed to get into his chosen university. I told them not to worry.

Going to university is no longer the ‘be all and the end all’. For the past 20 years there has been a popular assumption that going to university is something that all young people should aspire to. The outcome is that roughly 50% of young men and women now go on to university after leaving school.

Parents are quite rightly proud when their children do this. But sadly, a university degree no longer offers the guarantee of a well-paid job as it did in the past. Too many graduates are finding themselves burdened with debt but working in very low-paid, flexible, zero contract jobs. This may be good for the local retail, catering and hospitality industries but not if you need to get a mortgage to buy a house.

Today more and more employers recognise that university qualifications are not representative of talent and employability. Students may be able to write complex and convoluted essays and treatises for their degree studies but can they change a light bulb? Having an academic brain doesn’t count for much if going to university makes you almost unemployable. What good is the ‘student experience’, much emphasised by vicechancellors, if university graduates can’t be reliable and punctual when they do get jobs?

I’m not sure that sitting in lecture theatres with 200-plus other students and in seminars with 30 or more, many of whom have difficulty in speaking English, improves communication skills, the ability to work in teams, and to be creative as expected by employers. In a recent survey two-thirds of employers claimed universities fail to produce the employable graduates they need.

The result is many companies are turning their backs on graduate recruitment and focusing on selecting school leavers and training them through apprenticeship and other schemes. It is probably a better route of entry for young people wanting careers in the professions.

Another problem with parents’ obsession with getting their children to university is that it makes those who do not get in see themselves as failures and secondclass citizens.

In most countries, technical, craft and manual skills are regarded as vital to the wellbeing of society. This is not the case in the UK. Unlike in Germany, carpenters, electricians, mechanics and other manual skilled occupations are seen in Britain as jobs for those who are not ‘clever’ or ‘intelligent’.

I fail to see how being a highly skilled electrician, for example, requires less ‘intelligence’ than writing a student essay. It certainly requires more responsible behaviour. Sadly the British class system fails to allow this to be recognised.

We live in an economy that no longer offers long-term careers in large organisations. It means there are great opportunities for those that are not academically minded.

Richard Branson did not go to university. Large numbers of entrepreneurs have no qualifications at all. But as so-called ‘thick’ men and women they are creative, resourceful and fantastic innovators. In setting up successful businesses they are job creators, offering employment to others.

I find it amazing how many very successful entrepreneurs claim they are ‘not very bright’ because they did not go to university. It is a ‘label’ they carry with them for the rest of their lives.

These are the people the local Canterbury economy depends upon. How many graduates coming out of the City’s universities become local entrepreneurs? Very few compared with school leavers.

In an internet age, the barriers to business start-up are very low. Young people can do it today because digital businesses need little capital investment. But these start-ups require imagination, energy and enterprise. These are qualities that all universities should also encourage.

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