Browne's Gamble

[purplecat]

Interesting criticism of the Browne report although I'm not qualified to comment on whether it's pessimism over the interaction of market forces and "culture" are justified.

This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/28511.html.

Comments

[fredbassett]

Interesting and, I think, largely accurate, article. I was hearing similar things in the VC's address to university court at Bristol last Friday.

Seeing University as a 'consumer led' experience does fill me with some horror. Much of what I learned at both tertiary college and uni can really only be evaluated with hindsight. At the time I don't think I was objectively able to evaluate much of the experience.

And the dictates of business have some unintended consequences. Students now seem to be signing up for some kinds of business awareness courses that frankly horrified me. I think I'd rather they just got pissed and had fun than went to courses like that. All employers really want is for the little buggers to be able to spell and punctuate properly!

[purplecat]

I believe setting down their thoughts coherently on paper, is a strong requirement too and one that `consumer led' science courses may well not cater to - as a general rule your student scientist isn't too keen on the essay, preferring more objective modes of assessment.

However, depressingly, engineers were leading the table in graduate unemployment this year. It's all very well for the government to sing the importance of science and technology but if it can't provide a business environment in which engineering firms flourish then it's there's not much point providing incentives for people to take undergraduate courses in these subjects. Although I can see there's a chicken and egg argument there - maybe lots of unemployed engineers will lead to a flourishing engineering sector...

[fredbassett]

According to the VC here one of the most employable courses is Classics! But he didn't say what as.

[purplecat]

When I was at uni there was a widespread belief that the Civil Service favoured classicists - how true that was then, let alone nowadays I couldn't say.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Classicists are very employable in accountancy and it's a very good educational background to go into accountancy with (as in fact are most liberal arts degrees). Trouble is, too few classicists apply and we get stuck with too many science graduates who aren't "too keen on the essay".

[purplecat]

Someone else must be snapping up the classicists then!! One wonders if this means market forces will create more Classics degrees or whether there are so few of them that people with the right skills for accountancy self-select onto them in some odd way - i.e. the degree isn't actually nuturing the skills that accountancy needs, it's just the same skill-set leads to success in both Classics and Accountancy. One presumes that market forces are going to lead to more Classics degrees and then we'll find out...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

But how many are there? How many universities offer classics courses? How many schools teach Latin and / or Greek A-level?

As to the question of whether the degree nurtures the skills or it just has the same skill set that we look for, I suspect it's a bit of both. Classicists are more likely to be academic high achievers with good communication skills than, for example, the average Accounting graduate. At the same time, classics involves a good deal of lateral thinking and (to use a piece of educational jargon) 'higher skills'.

We don't actually discriminate at all on the basis of degree subject, just grades (so a 2:1 in Surfing Studies beats a 2:2 in Literae Humaniores despite my best efforts to convince the powers that be). We aren't alone in this, so I doubt that the market forces are actually that strong.

What will happen in accountancy is that we'll take on more non-graduates at 18 and train them ourselves. This probably makes more sense for us and for the applicants (who'll be earning money instead of building up debt). This in turn possibly* means that the academic and other requirements for graduates could end up being higher and that graduate entrants will be expected to be the fast-track high achievers with the potential to make partner or at least director.




* This is complete conjecture, although the move to taking on a higher proportion of non-graduates is happenning now.

[purplecat]

Interestingly there is also talk of widening the field of degree awarding bodies - I gather the publisher Pearson Education is interested in this. In that case it's forseeable that big accountancy firms (or groups thereof) could market their in house training regimes in some way, shape, or form as degrees.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

We (and all other accountancy firms) outsource the academic aspects of accountancy training but keep the practical training in-house and on-the-job. Non-graduates we take on do AAT training (accounting technician) which is seen as more than degree-equivalent anyway. Once they're AAT-qualifed, they move on to ACA (chartered accountancy).

I quite like the idea of company training = degree, but the problem for most industries would be "Hang on, if we train people up, and then award them a marketable qualification, won't they just bugger off and go and work for the competition?" For accountancy firms, lots of people leave when they qualify, but the accountancy firms' pyramid-shaped hierarchies are built to accommodate this (and alumni often end up as customers).

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

Very interesting article. And, I suspect, much of what he says is accurate and will come to pass.

The whole 'students as consumers' thing is already in play and will increase, whether that's getting mummy and daddy to phone their tutor to make their excuses for them, or using the NSS and other feedback mechanisms to whine about how they sooooooo don't see why they have to write essays ...

[purplecat]

It does seem to put a large burden on 18-year-olds to want what is best for them.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

And to know what that might be!