Employability ‘mantra’ supplanting higher education’s ‘inner core’

A voice of reason. Sadly Governments are not listening and obsession with audits and leagues tables is suffocating the sector, destroying intellectual thought and damaging creativity. Universities are no longer what they used to be and are unlikely ever to return to their true purpose.

In the UK, when the vocational training focused polytechnics were granted university status, there was a worry that this would mean that proper training would disappear, and everyone would only ever try to get an academic education. However, the opposite has happened. Rather than the polys becoming more like older universities, the older universities are being forced to be more like polys.

Whilst employability is important, and for the students I teach it is one of the main reasons they choose to go to University, it is absolutely right that universities need to remember their core purpose is to act in the public interest for the benefit of society. Garry Carnegie's paper here https://www.academia.edu/s/3f02dc56b0#comment_1270188 discusses the effect that the KPIs such as employability KPIS have on universities and it is frightening....