The UK’s Association for Graduate Recruiters has published a pre-election “manifesto” today, which argues, among other things, that the government’s drive to get 50 per cent of all under 30s to go into higher education should be abandoned. The AGR has repeated some now familiar concerns about falling standards, and university degrees of dubious quality.
Recruiters are right to be concerned about the quality of graduates they are hiring. It would be a worry if students are emerging from three years at university deeply in debt but only imperfectly educated. In my experience, employers are usually at least as concerned about new recruits’ attitude to work and “job-readiness”, as well as their academic qualifications.
All the same, while the AGR’s forceful comments have won them some publicity, it seems odd to send a message to the nation’s young that higher education may not be for them. What sort of future labour market does the AGR expect to see young people entering? Should we really be bracing ourselves for a lower skilled, less well educated future? Is that what young people in China and India are being told?
The government’s sensible idea of raising educational standards has got bogged down in misleading terminology and poor communication. No-one, I think, is suggesting that 50 per cent of 18 year olds should be taking a degree in Latin – nor media studies, for that matter. Vocational qualifications have been sadly undervalued in the UK for too long. But suggesting that some more practical skills should be classified as a degree subject has been a mistake.
The upshot has been that perhaps too many young people have taken out large loans, having been “mis-sold” a “degree”. This is unfortunate to say the least. But equally, to give the impression, perhaps unwittingly, that education and training should not be a priority for (at least) half the nation’s young would be no less unfortunate.
Come on, employers: let us race to the top, not to the bottom. Education is for the likes of all of us, not just for a narrow elite.
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Lucy Kellaway, FT columnist and associate editor, offers her solution to your workplace problems in a column in the Financial Times. In the 
