Work experience should be a job requirement for academics

1) Until research intensive universities promote faculty for pay raises and tenure equally for all contributions then the arguments in this document are moot at best. The same holds for grants for research and other activities which now default to publications in ranked journals. 2) According the the World Bank and other measures every country needs one or more R1 institutions which requires research and students to advance in that direction. There is nothing that says that students looking for employment outside of academia need or should attend these institutions. 3) There is a global push for collaboration among universities and there is increasing student mobility which reduces the imperative that all universities and all faculty need or should have the same skills. That is not to say that academics should exist within an intellectual cocoon.

Once again I find myself reading a post about the need for academics to prepare students for the World of Work. Once again I find myself reading statements about what this World of Work requires of our young people. Once again there is somebody who professes to know which skills this World of Work requires. Once again academics are being accused of failing in some way because they are ONLY doing what they are paid to do. Once again, and most annoyingly, no definition is provided of what a skill is; despite using phrases like 'generic skills', 'professional skills', and 'life skills'. On more than one occasion I have challenged protagonists of 'skills' development to DEFINE what a skill is. So far nobody has taken up the challenge. The academic world is awash with individuals informing distinguished colleagues of their failings; whilst simultaneously offering solutions for their failings; often under the guise of 'Professional Development'. Doing so simply mimics the tried and tested business model of convincing weak 'consumers' of their needs whilst simultaneously informing them of a product which satisfies those needs. A bit like slimming solutions in January. Let's be clear; there is no 'real world' in which all employers speak with one voice. I would argue that employers COLLECTIVELY have no idea what they want from young people; other than their ability to be trained and developed in to a role/job/position/profession. This 'trainability' is inextricably linked to EDUCATION which is what we, as academics, do best. I suggest that we are left alone to get on with it in ways which are commensurate with our own moral code.

I have worked in retail as a teenager then in the building trade and as a nurse and civil servant before entering academia. But I could have done my job as an academic just as effectively without the other work experience. The above article is pure anti-academic managerialist corporate gimpery, made-up in an agitated miswired brain, brain bully-dogma. Must surgeons and other doctors have world outside of the medical world first? Must soldiers? Must Vets? Must engineers? Must nurses? Must accountants? Utter nonsense on stilts.