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What’s the point of a degree?



Does going to university make you more employable, or just put off the day you join the dole queue? Helen Connor reports.

You’ve just failed to get into either of your chosen universities, and you must be feeling pretty low. Some of your friends have started work and are flashing their money around. You are facing three or more years somewhere you hadn’t planned to go. Should you just throw in the towel, rip up the clearing form and get on with looking for a job?

No, no and no. At least, not without thinking about it. a degree will not guarantee that you get a better job, or that you get a job at all, but it should give you a distinct advantage in the labour market.

Firstly, it makes it possible to enter a wider range of occupations, particularly management and the professions. Entry to most of the latter (law, accountancy and teaching, for example), is now virtually barred to non-graduates. Elsewhere in financial services or public administration, say, employers are increasingly recruiting graduates to positions that were once filled largely for school-leavers.

Secondly, graduates earn more on average, and the earnings gap between qualified and unqualified people in the UK is widening. It pays to get higher levels of skill and qualifications, and the demand for skilled and educated labour is increasing.

Thirdly, graduates are much less likely to be unemployed than non-graduates: the unemployment rate among degree-holders in the workforce, at for per cent, is less than half that for those without degrees. What’s more, demand is likely to increase for high-level skills, as new technology is introduced, businesses restructure and international competition intensifies. Graduate-level ability is being required in a growing share of all jobs. Some of the occupational groups predicted to grow fastest in the Nineties employ mainly highly qualified people. Almost 1.4 million extra jobs are expected to appear in professional, managerial and technical occupations by the turn of the century, compared with a fall of 86,000 in clerical and secretarial occupations.

The outlook, then, is generally good for would-be students. But no individual can be sure of finding fulfilling employment at the end of his or her studies, The recruitment market is likely to remain very competitive, with the supply of graduates expected to grow faster than demand over the next few years. Although initial unemployment of graduates is now falling, the average is still above that of the late Eighties. Also, there] is emerging evidence that a significant number of graduates feel underemployed in their jobs at least at first, and find their new careers make too little use of the skills and knowledge they acquired at university.

Graduates are going to a much wider range of jobs and employers than was previously the case, often displacing less qualified people. The proportion entering traditional graduate trainee/entry schemes in large" firms has fallen. More are entering small firms that previously did not employ any graduates, going into self-employment, or taking up temporary or fixed-term positions. Because of this, and the disappearance of traditional career ladders in large firms, graduates' early career paths are more varied than they were, say, ten years ago.

In a competitive, albeit growing, graduate job market, securing the first real job can be a major challenge. Taking a postgraduate qualification, especially in a vocational subject, or one of the conversion IT courses, has helped in the past, although it is not a guarantee of easy entry into the labour market. Similarly, first-degree graduates from disciplines such as IT, engineering and business-oriented social sciences have generally fared better than those from other disciplines, although much depends on the qualities of the individual.

The trend is towards a growing proportion of jobs being open to graduates from any discipline, with employers putting more emphasis on personal skills such as communication, teamworking, business-awareness and self-reliance. If you want to make sure the next three or so years are not a waste of time, develop your personal skills, раrticularly through work experience. Get as much advice and information as possible from your graduate careers service — the earlier the better. Develop a job-hunting and career-planning strategy. Study hard. And try to enjoy yourself.

 

9.b Match the words in the left and right columns to restore the collocations from the text. In what context are they used?

 

distinct job hunting and career planning
unemployment ladders
recruitment scheme
range less qualified people
earnings of the century
turn (n) rate
displace gap
graduate/ trainer of occupations
career market
develop advantage

 

9.c Discuss the following questions with a partner. Use the information from the text, your background knowledge and other sources of information:

1. What arguments does the author offer to prove that the college / university degree can give the graduate a distinct advantage in the labour market? Which of the arguments would you rate as two most and least important for yourself? Explain your priorities.

2. What factors devaluating the worth of a degree are mentioned in the article? Can you think of any others? Are you aware of the difficulties that may arise when you face the harsh reality of the job market in Ukraine?

3. What changes has the recruitment market in Britain undergone? Are they favourable or unfavourable for British graduates? Can we observe the same tendency in Ukraine?

4. Is taking a postgraduate qualification a guarantee of easy entry into the labour market in Britain? Have you considered doing the postgraduate course after completing the 5-year university course? If so, what are your motives and expectations? Do you think a postgraduate degree is worth extra time and investment?

5. What is in the author’s opinion the outlook for would-be graduates in Britain? What are the prospects for degree-holders in Ukraine?

6. Do employers in Britain rely only on a college/ university diploma? What individual qualities should a graduate develop to meet the employers’ requirements?

9.d Work in a group of 3-4. Discuss, which of the following statements you support or challenge. Give your reasons.

1. Today we are witnessing the education boom and most of young people attach great importance to college/ university diploma.

2. The idea that the degree is useless is part of a pseudo-educational philosophy that the younger generation cannot accept.

3. Not all young people are “university material,” some of them might be better suited to vocational training apprenticeship.

4. BA or BSc is the single credential for any sort of advancement – or even an automatic hallmark of academic achievement.

10. Debate the following motion: “Success is proportional to academic (vocational) qualifications.” Use the following scheme for holding the debate.

a) Planning a debate:

– decide on the motion (topic) to be debated

– choose a chairperson to run the debate and keep order

– choose four speakers for Team A (the side for the motion)

– choose four speakers for Team В (the side against the motion)

– spend five minutes planning your arguments and making notes for your short speeches

– decide the order in which people will speak

– a member from Team A speaks first, then a member from Team В and so on

– in pairs, the rest of the class discusses the motion and thinks of questions they can ask during the debate

– at the end of the debate the chairperson opens the debate to the house (class)

– the chairperson asks everyone to vote either for or against the motion

– the chairperson counts the votes and reads out the result

b) Running a debate:

Chairperson:

· – We are here to debate the issue of …

· – We will now debate the motion …

· – I now call on the first speaker to open the debate.

· – I now call on the second/final speaker.

· – I now open the debate to the floor.

c) Closing a debate:

Chairperson:

– We will now take a vote. All those in favour of the motion please raise your hands.

· – All those against the motion please raise your hands.

· – (if Team A wins): The motion is carried. The house believes that …

· – (if Team В wins): The motion is defeated. The house does not believe that ...

11.a Read the article about the dilemma facing British university students. Be ready to answer the questions contributing your own ideas.

 




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