An academic says university education isn’t about training students to find jobs after a federal government survey found a quarter of graduates regarded their degree as useless.
Dr Michael Biercuk, a senior lecturer in physics at the University of Sydney, argues it is more important for university education to focus on teaching theory than making graduates job ready.
‘The aim of university is not to provide job training,’ he told the ABC’s The Drum program.
University of Sydney academic Michael Biercuk says university isn’t about ‘job training’
The Department of Education and Training survey found 25 per cent of graduates unimpressed
‘It’s not to provide detailed skills education that allow you to perform a job.
‘University is about the generation and dissemination of knowledge.’
The academic, who likely earns a $120,000 a year salary, made the declaration after a survey funded by the federal Department of Education and Training found a quarter of graduates regarded their degree as useless for their current employment.
The annual Employer Satisfaction Survey found 15.3 per cent of graduates regarded their degree as ‘not that important’ while 11.1 per cent of respondents said their qualification was ‘not at all important’.
The Drum’s Adam Spencer pointed out that taxpayers spend $17 billion a year on universities
The Drum host Adam Spencer, who has a PhD in pure mathematics, pointed out to Dr Biercuk that taxpayers spent $17 billion a year on universities.
However, the senior lecturer insisted universities weren’t vocational training institutions.
‘Totally separate from that are technical institutes like TAFE, where they teach skills that already exist,’ Dr Biercuk said, adding employers were to blame for neglecting on-the-job training.
The federally-funded Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching survey found information technology, creative arts and commerce graduates to be the least satisfied with their degrees.
Information technology, creative arts and commerce graduates were the least satisfied
More than half, or 55 per cent of IT graduates said their degree wasn’t important for their job while 52 per cent of creative arts and commerce graduates expressed the same sentiment.
‘Overall, graduates tended to view their qualification as less important for their current employment than their supervisor,’ the survey said.
Dr Biercuk admitted there were probably too many students going to university when there weren’t the jobs available to graduates, accusing universities of taking in more students to get federal funding so they could ‘keep themselves afloat and grow’.
A quarter of graduates in the federally-funded survey said degrees were useless for their work