In 2001, Chris Woodhead, England’s chief inspector of schools caused a storm when he accused British universities of devaluing higher education by offering ‘vacuous degrees’.

At the time, London’s The Sunday Times carried a surprisingly candid interview with Woodhead. Among other things he questioned whether many vocational courses deliver on their claims.

Woodhead says many courses don’t prepare students for the real world. He argues some vocational degrees do little to help a student’s employment prospects and do even less for their employers. Britain’s Institute of Directors backed these comments, so did a number of individual employers.

Daft courses are here too

The criticisms could equally apply to courses currently on offer in Australia and New Zealand – not to mention some of the less prestigious American universities, which have a long tradition of offering worthless qualifications and dubious courses.

Woodhead grabbed the headlines by decrying certain ‘quasi-academic’ degrees on offer in the UK including: Golf course management, pig enterprise management, knitwear and beauty therapy courses.

And then there is ‘Madonna Studies’ – just in case you’re wondering we are talking about the popular singer here rather than theological investigation concerning the mother of Christ. Thankfully this nonsense is no longer on offer.

Sure, these daft-sounding degrees are easy targets, but Woodhead has a point. How many employers need workers who can deconstruct the lyrics of ‘Material Girl’?

How many employers need workers who can deconstruct the lyrics of ‘Material Girl?

You can read more about Woodhead’s comments and various responses at the BBC news web site. Just to prove what a straight shooter he is when getting stuck into the value of various university courses, you can also read Woodhead’s comments on media studies – which he describes as a one-way ticket to the dole queue.

Is there value in media studies?

I’ll leave it to you to decide whether there is any real value in media studies or the more offbeat subjects mentioned.

It’s interesting and disappointing, but predictable that most of the angry defensive response from academics to Woodhead’s comments focused on his trashing of seemingly silly courses rather than his more important points regarding vocational education in general.

Clearly British academics are as insecure as antipodeans when it comes to handling constructive criticism.

Woodhead’s important point was the balance between vocational training and coherent academic learning is now completely out of kilter. The issue is not whether our society needs people trained at public expense in the subtle art of looking after golf courses, tending pigs or even reading newspapers, but whether such a course is on an academic par with an honours degree in Astrophysics.

Bigger picture

Woodhead rightly points out the danger in less obviously worthy courses of devaluing all higher education. It’s a very real danger. I’ve personally known employers in knowledge industries who are suspicious of all graduates – they think universities fill people’s heads with stupid ideas. Many of those who get beyond that level of thinking have doubts about anything other than a straightforward vocational degree.

I always found this attitude prejudiced and hard to understand until I interviewed a seriously strange person with a media studies degree for a newspaper job.

Common sense tells me one or two crazy examples are not enough evidence to deduce a trend and I like to keep an open mind but I have to say few of the media studies graduates I’ve interviewed are cut out to work in the media. It’s hard to image who might employ them. On the other hand people used to say the same thing about sociology, which has since become quite respectable.

It doesn’t make sense for education to stand still in a world where everything careens about at a frantic pace. However, there does need to be some kind of benchmark for higher education.

Lively debate about vocation versus academic learning

There’s always been a lively debate over the value of degree level vocational training and more academic learning. Both have their place in higher education and ideally, most people entering the knowledge workforce will have the opportunity to experience both kinds of learning at some point. Modern economies need people trained in sophisticated skills as well as people trained how to think.

Yet there is a lot of real doubt about the worth of some courses. This isn’t new. Back in the late 1970s an acquaintance of mine was accepted to study computer science at an American university. He sent me a copy of his first semester timetable. Of about 30 timetabled hours, only four hours could be loosely described as studying computers.

Of course, there’s a lot to be said for getting a liberal education, but this bloke spent six hours a week on the university golf course as part of his computer science degree. In year one he was expected to reduce his handicap to six in order to pass – a handicap of four represented a high distinction.

Playing golf would ultimately account for 15 percent of his degree. Those of us studying in, then still rigorously academic, British universities were shocked by this revelation. On the other hand, from a vocational training point of view it’s not such a dumb idea. A career in the computer industry, particularly in commercial sales, might well be helped along by an ability to knock a small white ball into 18 holes.

Ultimately the only way for knowledge workers and would be knowledge workers to steer through the higher education maze is to spend time researching the options. It’s obviously worth checking the academic reputation of courses, subjects within courses and institutions before signing up.

Less obvious and more difficult is checking with potential employers about the relative merits of these things. You’ll need to be extra canny about this – people often just pass on their own prejudices rather than provide valuable insight. But education is too valuable to waste. You don’t want to spend three years getting a Mickey Mouse degree – even if you plan to work for Disney.

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These days a degree is pretty much the bare minimum qualification for wannabe Knowledge Workers. A few exceptional individuals slip through the net without a formal degree. But on the whole, a higher education is an entry ticket to the world’s more interesting – and rewarding – jobs.

But, the hard-gained entry ticket that almost sent you bankrupt and had you working like a galley-slave through the best years of your life only gets you into the ball park. It doesn’t mean you get to see the game. Indeed, some graduates are lucky if they can get as far as walking up and down the aisles selling trays of beer and peanuts.

Not only are there unemployed graduates, but also, incredibly given all the propaganda we keep hearing about a skills shortage, unemployment levels for recent graduates are significantly higher than for the wider population.

That’s right, in round numbers 15 percent of Australian graduates fail to find work within four months of leaving the hallowed gates of academia. (This number is from the 2007 Grad Files and is lower than in most recent years). Australian unemployment is currently 4.3 percent. To all intents and purposes this is close full employment – one recruitment agent told me the only people in Sydney not working are those who do so by choice. In New Zealand the gap is smaller, the most recent comparison I can find is in 2006 the graduate unemployment rate was around 6 percent while general unemployment rate was 3.4 percent, which again is close to full employment.

How does this full employment across the economy square with the reported higher levels of graduate unemployment?

First, industry doesn’t just demand skilled workers, it wants experienced skilled workers. This isn’t unreasonable. However, few organizations are prepared to train anybody, which is unreasonable.

When I left university (some years ago) – admittedly in the UK, but I know the Australian and New Zealand experience was similar, most companies operated some form of graduate intake programme. These appear to have gone the way of the typewriter. You rarely hear of them any more.

To some extent, you can blame governments and trade unions for this situation. By insisting on minimum wages and other expensive conditions these well-meaning groups have effectively priced entry-level jobs out of the market. I’m not advocating a return to 19^th century employment practices, but a few years of relative financial hardship is a small price to pay for gaining high-quality experience.

A second problem is the whole business of vocational education. A generation ago universities turned out sociologists, linguists, physicists and philosophers. Today, reacting to what university authorities describe as ‘market forces’, our institutions of learning tend to send people into the world with law and business qualifications, computer science and sports science.

The problem is that universities sell these vocational degrees on the basis that they prepare people for the workplace. They often collude with large employers to ensure that course include skills needed in today’s offices and call centres. Learning how to print fancy-coloured margins on a Microsoft Word document can count towards your final degree.

To an extent, these vocational courses do successfully manage to provide employers with pre-packed units of production. For example, if you’re hiring public relations staff you can find graduates already versed in media or communications studies. Not surprisingly school leavers queue up for the vocational courses which appear to offer a fast-track to the top. This most popular courses tend to be in vocational areas like law, business and commerce.

There’s just one flaw with this move to vocational higher education. A closer look at the graduate destination figures (you can find them at www.gradlink.edu.au) shows that students with vocational qualifications don’t necessarily have better job prospects than those with more academic qualifications. Some vocational courses have relatively high levels of graduate unemployment and some academic graduates manage to score better starting salaries.

For example, almost 15 percent of Business Studies graduates are still unemployed and looking for work four months after graduation. Of those that find work, the average starting salary is A$40,000. The nearest academic equivalent to Business Studies is Economics. For some reason Economics is known as ‘the dismal science’. Yet young economists have little to be dismal about, only 12 percent are still unemployed four months after graduation and their average starting salary is A$45,000.

You don’t need an Economics degree to figure out that the job prospects for both types of graduate are roughly equal, but Economists have the edge over Business graduates.

Now I’m certain that many readers will regale me with stories to show what a fun bunch of guys there are in university accounting departments and how urban planning degrees are just one long barrel of laughs. (Looking at the fruit of their labour after graduation it’s clear the party never stops). But based on the evidence of the graduate destination survey, I’d like to suggest that, in the long term, vocational degrees are no more valuable than more general degrees and that most people would regard studying them as less fascinating.

In other words, from a purely financial point of view, you might as well follow your heart and study the subjects that interest you the most. There’s an important by-product of doing this. If you love what you are doing, you are more likely to make a good job of it. And that means you are more likely to succeed.

Oh and one last point. Remember this, many of the best jobs in the knowledge economy – and some of the best paying jobs – require creative skills. You’re not likely to develop those pouring over dull vocational textbooks.