Dani Garavelli: Degree of caution on academic aspirations

By Dani Garavelli
Published on 08/07/2012 00:00

THE atmosphere in the playground at the end of term was slightly subdued. The traditional “Where are you going on holiday?” chit-chat – as reliable a signal of school finishing as the onset of rain – was providing the usual easy-listening soundtrack, but it was overdubbed with other, more fretful conversations about what the following academic year would hold.

Some mothers gathered at the gates had older children anxiously awaiting exam results which would decide whether or not they would get into their chosen university. Others had offspring nearing the end of their degrees who would soon be trying to get onto the first rung of the career ladder.

Most had terrifying tales to tell; of even the least prestigious universities demanding unfeasibly high grades and evidence of vocational work experience for a place in medicine or law; and of a lack of employment opportunities for those qualifying as doctors, solicitors, accountants, teachers, architects and surveyors, indeed almost any profession you can think of. Those, like me, who have all this to come in the years ahead, listened aghast.

The drip feed of bad news, both anecdotal and from statisticians, is making it difficult for parents to know what to advise. Where once instinct would have told them to encourage their offspring to be ambitious; to apply for the most sought-after course in the most highly-regarded university, it’s no longer clear a good degree affords any greater guarantee of financial security than working as an electrician, plumber or taxi driver.

Imagine what it would feel like to have nagged your children to focus; to forgo the football and the parties in the interests of a better future, only to find that –having successfully scaled every hurdle –they’d nothing to show for it.

Last week’s fresh onslaught of stories provided little in the way of reassurance. A survey of 215 top firms suggested there were now 73 applications for every one graduate job; and in some more sought-after sectors the competition was even more fierce, with 154 graduates chasing every retail post.

The same survey, based on interviews with members of the Association of Graduate recruiters, revealed some are now thinking of filtering out applications from candidates who get anything other than a first-class degree. Most companies realise academic excellence is not the only quality required in a candidate, but, overwhelmed with applications, they regard it as the easiest and cheapest way to whittle them down to a more manageable level.

If true, this is a startling development; a generation ago, the only people who needed a First were those who wanted to go on and do a doctorate.

Today’s young people seem to caught in a perfect storm. The recession – and the austerity policies that are meant to solve it – have brought cuts across the public and private sectors, so there are fewer jobs. At the same time, the drive to push more and more school leavers into higher education means a larger number of graduates hammering at a diminishing number of doors.

As if all that wasn’t enough, the relentless grades inflation is further upping the ante. In Scotland last year, the Higher pass rate hit a record high at 75.2 per cent, up 0.5 per cent on the previous year, while at university level, there has been a 216 per cent increase in the number of graduates leaving with first-class degrees since 1993, with one in six students now achieving that level, compared to around one in 20 in the 1980s.

Whether this is due to harder work or lower standards is immaterial; the consequences are the same – more competition, more stress and a need to find ever more inventive ways to distinguish yourself from your peers.

Some solace could be taken, if you were a glass-half-full kind of person, from a report by the Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA) which suggests that in 2010/11, 93 per cent of students obtaining their first degree at a Scottish university went on to further study or into employment. But it doesn’t say what kind of jobs they were doing. If it was bar work or flipping burgers – the kinds of jobs students anyway do to fund their studies – then it’s hardly a vote of confidence.

It also muddies the water, since the universities that fared best in the employability stakes were not, as you might expect, the elite ones, but the more modern ones, particularly Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen which claims to place “employability” at the forefront of its teaching.

Add this to the fact other figures from HESA show that, in 2009/10, electronic and electrical engineering, civil engineering and computer science were among the five degrees which produced the highest level of unemployment, and it’s little wonder school leavers don’t know whether they’re coming or going.

Perhaps parents should encourage their children to ask themselves if university really is for them, particularly if they’re only getting in by the skin of their teeth. But, with all employment outcomes similarly gloomy, it seems those who are sold on the idea of higher education might as well follow their hearts and take whatever degree they fancy, keeping their fingers crossed that things will improve in the meantime. That way, at least, they will enjoy their years of learning before heading out into the bear pit of the current jobs market.