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Another headline… in a series of many headlines… of a supposedly smart – and definitely well-connected – business person going on about how the role of universities is to prepare students for employment / vocations.  Is it really?

Perhaps if we (in most of the developed world) had not:

* dumbed down degrees (and their entry requirements) so much

* tried to ‘streamline’  universities by amalgamating them with technical colleges

* put less emphasis on telling kids they “had to go to uni” and more on proper vocational counselling

* stigmatised many – very respectable professions – removing their vocational elements and making them too academic

Surely universities provide an academic grounding – that, when properly distributed, is suitable for the brightest and best (not necessarily the richest) and it is this that has provided the foundation for many of humantities greatest discoveries?

Isn’t preparation for employment is a separate thing?

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