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The job market: a qualified approach
By Neil Munro, Managing Editor, TESS
Two press releases landed on my desk recently, which should be of interest to those behind CfE. The first was headed: "As youth unemployment heads for one million, expert say 'university qualifications will improve job chances'." The second declared: "Qualifications not a priority in today's jobs market."
The first of those, which came from a university task force on student finance, might well induce the response 'well, the universities would say that, wouldn't they?' So the second pronouncement is perhaps the more startling, and ought certainly to make schools, colleges and universities sit up and take note.
The research on which it is based, a survey of 1,500 businesses by learning design company Infinity Learning, asked employers to rank the most important factors they took into account when choosing recruits – experience, qualifications, potential or enthusiasm. A broad range of work experience was considered the top requirement by four out of five employers.
According to Susan Mackie, a director at Infinity Learning: "The results suggest that individuals are recruited primarily on the basis of their experience, followed by the extent to which they have shown the potential to progress into more senior positions within the organisation."
Universities and colleges take a different view, targeting their message on the potential 'lost generation' – the 16-24 year olds whose unemployment level topped the one million mark last November. The concern of the independent Task Force on Student Finance Information, which produced the first of my headlines, is to "combat confusion over tuition fees". It points out that "you don't need cash up-front to go to university, you only repay this loan after graduating and if earning over £21,000 per annum, and the loans are wiped after 30 years".
There is certainly confusion over tuition fees. The most recent figures from the UCAS admissions service on applications to higher education courses appear to show that the cost of a degree does not matter – much. The number of English students, facing loan-based fees of up to £9,000 a year and wanting to get into English institutions, has fallen by 15.2 per cent, while applications to Scottish institutions from Scottish students with no tuition fees to pay have dropped by 16.2 per cent.
Despite the apparent contradiction between the two press releases, we can reconcile them. Graduates do earn a 'salaries premium' (10 per cent more than non-graduates, according to the 20 research-intensive universities in the Russell Group). And even in the Infinity Learning study, 100 per cent of the employers endorsed the importance of job applicants having "the ability to learn independently" (which is presumably demonstrated by acquiring qualifications).
So there is little doubt that qualifications matter; they simply need to be reinforced, through qualities such as confidence, initiative and problem-solving, to allow the cream to rise to the surface (the head of training at Arnold Clark told a recent conference on skills that proficiency in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award was exactly the added value companies like his would value).
A bit like the 'devo-max' debate raging in political circles, we should increasingly be thinking of 'qualifications-max'. Certificates are adequate – but no longer sufficient. Or to put it another way, we need more than 'successful learners'.