College students graduate without the skills for success in life
Between May 2019 and Nov 2020, Australia’s unemployment grew by 26% from 694,300 to 877,500.
Now, here’s the really scary statistic.
In the same period, unemployed Australians with a degree grew by 57% from 129,600 to 204,400. (ABS Labour Force, Australia)
These statistics are true for the USA, UK, Canada, and most advanced Western economies.
Universities are charged with failing to instill in graduates the appropriate skills and dispositions to secure employment. This is a problem largely attributable to universities focusing too rigidly on academically orientated provision and pedagogy and not enough on applied learning and functional skills.
The past decade in Western economies has therefore seen a strong focus on employability skills, including communication, teamwork, resilience, and self-management; yet Universities still churn out undergraduates with a Bachelor’s degree that is increasingly irrelevant.
Calls by university students for practical 21st-century skills are gaining momentum. Students lament the increasing costs of tertiary studies and the desire among graduates to acquire more vocationally relevant skills to equip them for the job market and entrepreneurial opportunities.
The right drivers for whole system success canvas a comprehensive solution to what ails the current school and college system and its place in societal development.
Let me frame the argument clearly because some of it is nuanced. The pervasive obsession with academic grades and degrees and corresponding elite rewards at the expense of other people results in narrow learning that severely distorts the skills people need in the 21st century.
Even those students who are ‘successful’ are not prepared for the uncertainties of life.
Instead, my argument will be that by integrating wellbeing and awareness of life skills we establish learning as something that prepares all students for the ever-complex world we live in.
What about those who become apparently successful adults, ending up as CEOs, business owners, and other prominent leaders? Again there are exceptions, but let’s start with the question: ‘Are smart highly educated people good at life?’ (It’s a rhetorical question).
The proportion of elected government members who have university degrees has been rising for the past forty years. In western economies, 80+ percent currently have university degrees, and most of them came from private schools.
Here is the nuanced part. They are successful, but are they good at life — their own and those whose lives they are expected to improve? Let’s say most are proven ‘academically’, but are they good system leaders — mobilizing and improving the lives of the greater population?
Having well-educated people run the government is generally desirable, provided they possess sound judgment and a sympathetic understanding of working people’s lives — what Aristotle called practical wisdom and civic virtue — but history shows little connection between prestigious academic credentials and either practical wisdom or an instinct for the common good in the here and now.
Even more nuanced, educated people who did not come from struggle can be cognitively empathetic, but not necessarily ‘emotionally’ empathetic in relation to people in difficult circumstances.
Moreover, and to complete the point, we have had little mobility for 40 years, so we have not benefited from people who were successful because they came up the hard way — parents sacrificed, son or daughter benefited, who in turn raised their children — which, in effect, created a pathway and pipeline of people who have practical as well as academic wisdom. There are a few who succeed despite their circumstances, but they tend to be exceptions that prove the rule.
Overall, we are less well-off societally because we have not benefited from the mobility that could have accompanied these four decades of the development of human and social capital. More broadly, the ‘sorting role’ of Academics Obsession produces leaders in all sectors who are unlikely to be balanced in the cognitive and wellbeing qualities that are essential for leading in the 21st Century.
People become good at life when they feel safe, valued, and have a sense of purpose and meaning.
There is a need to be engaged in meaningful activities that contribute to the well-being of others. In the face of adversity, being able to navigate to the resources that you need to get out of the situation — known as resilience — is an essential component.
To get there requires that we identify values, goals, and needs as well as personal strengths. The competencies you need to achieve this, I think are the 9 Life-Skills, as long as compassion and empathy are emphasized.
The cold hard facts of 21st-century life are clearly in focus and it’s why SEVENmile Venture Lab delivers the Life-Skills Framework learning programs.
About the Author:
Greg Twemlow is a Sydney-based Social Enterprise Founder | Startup Mentor | CEO | Writer | Speaker | Host of https://medium.com/consilio
Greg Twemlow
sharing what I’ve learned from 35 years as a citizen-of-the-world, parent, corporate executive, entrepreneur and since 2018, CEO of a registered charity
