School Gate Blog with Sarah Ebner: Choosing to go private

Universities should do more to teach students basic “people and communications skills” and make sure that they understand the importance of getting to work on time, to prepare them better for the world of work, business leaders said yesterday.

The CBI urged more universities to follow the lead of Liverpool John Moores University, which puts all of its undergraduates through a World of Work (WoW) course designed to give them the problem-solving and communications skills they will need at work.

Speaking at the launch of the CBI Higher Education Task Force, Richard Lambert, Director-General of the CBI, said that industry had concerns about the quality of graduates. “We think that soft skills are an important part of education, not necessarily for everybody, but most people need to be able to get up in the morning,” he said.

Susan Anderson, the CBI’s head of education, said that its surveys had found that companies ranked employability skills as the most important factor when recruiting graduates, ahead of degree subject. More than a fifth of employers are dissatisfied with graduates’ basic skills.

“There is dissatisfaction with soft skills, communication skills and self-management. These are generic skills we expect every graduate to have. There are problems here but they should be relatively easy to fix,” she said.

Rick Trainor, the president of Universities UK, insisted that most employers were not dissatisfied with the quality of graduates, but added: “I don’t see a fundamental conflict between pursuing subjects of study rigorously and helping to prepare people for employment.”

The CBI said that businesses should help universities to develop employability skills and offer more intern-ships for undergraduates.

Liverpool John Moores University has work-related training courses for every undergraduate on its 280 courses. The idea, according to Michael Brown, the Vice-Chancellor, was driven by a realisation that “higher education was no longer fit for purpose in preparing graduates for successful careers”.

Susie McKerr, 24, a sports development and PE student at the university, said she felt that learning about the day-to-day demands of the workplace would be a tremendous advantage.

In particular, she wants to hone her negotiating skills. “It is great for graduates to get these skills on top of their degree. With such a large number of graduates out there, it gives you something extra to put on your CV as well as added confidence,” she said.

The CBI taskforce, chaired by Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of Centrica, includes employers and university vice-chancellors. It aims to influence political thinking on higher education and to feed into the Government’s promised review of tuition fees, which is scheduled for next year.

Mr Laidlaw said that there was a mismatch between the types of graduates being produced by universities and what employers wanted. In particular, he highlighted a shortage of science, engineering and mathematics graduates.

Despite this, there is an apparent oversupply of graduates, with 10.1 million of them in Britain chasing only 9 million graduate-level jobs, according to CBI figures.

By 2020, the proportion of graduate-level jobs required by the economy will rise to 42 per cent, from the current 30 per cent.

Explore Education

• Schools

• GCSE and A Level

• Good University Guide

• Sunday Times University Guide

• Student

• Young Times

• School Gate

Times recommends

• University black hole as applicants surge
• Students to be offered 'no-fee degrees'
• 'White flight' causing school segregation