For the last twenty-five years, give or take, parents have been sold the idea that their children must attend university in order to guarantee their future employability,and, more importantly, income. Federal and State governments have reinforced the notion of the 'clever country', urging Australians to be better educated. This has been the dominant message, reinforced by Australian schools who stopped focusing on anything other than which university course a young person should do; somewhere along the line careers advisors largely stopped talking about apprenticeships to students (not their fault entirely, as the apprenticeship system became much more complex and difficult to navigate), and since they have been able to offer more places and compete with each other, the universities have poured big money into attracting as many students as possible.
What we have in Australia right now is a tertiary system in chaos, which will increase exponentially if the current government's education policies are implemented (because what we heard on Tuesday night was less to do with budget and much more to do with ruling class snobbery).
Some good things have happened over the past twenty-five years. Some students who were previously shut out of universities have found a place; these include students from low socio-economic backgrounds, students with disabilities and refugees. We have seen a surge in 'first in family' students coming to uni. Perhaps this has worked too well, and underwrites the current Liberal government's reaction towards exclusiveness.
We have also seen the great grab for money in attracting overseas students to study in Australia. This was most effective over the 2000-2010 year period, after which this arrangement started to sour for the students and the families who paid the big bucks to send them here. Universities in China and India, for example, started improving the quality of their education, while ours remained stagnant. The promise of settling in Australia after graduation (which was part of the sell) became an idle hope for most; and after paying all that money for their kids education, parents found them back at home and unable to get a job.
Getting back to Australia, there are three glaring statistics related the Australian context. I am not going to put money on these figures being exact, but I am happy to stake my reputation on them being reasonably accurate. First - despite all the hype around university education, the percentage of Australians with degrees has not significantly altered in the last twenty-five years: still only around 25% of the population actually has a degree. Second, in around 80% of jobs that are advertised, a degree is not a mandatory requirement. And third, while raw statistics show that people with university degrees are less likely to be unemployed than those without degrees, many of these are not working in an area related to their degree, (or in any job that requires a degree) and are underemployed (working part-time or casually). Those from 'equity' groups including low socio-economic or indigenous backgrounds, people with disabilities, have much lower graduate employment outcomes than the traditional university graduates.
The statistics on employment outcomes for graduates are also influenced by the fact that many graduates, if they do not get a job, will go back to do further study - in many cases this actually lowers employability because of expectations of higher pay or better jobs on the part of the graduate, while employers may think they are overqualified but under-experienced.
As a career practitioner, the message that I have the most difficulty in delivering is that employers want people who have already worked, that have an understanding of workplace expectations and the maturity to handle the rigours of holding down a job. So, in fact, employers want experience PLUS a degree, not a degree plus experience - but trying to get this across to the students and their families is almost impossible.
I digress a little. Back to the question of whether a degree is a could or should for young people and career changes. Obviously, for some jobs, a degree is essential - law, medicine, teaching, for example all require one that is specific to the field. For others, it can be an asset, such as accounting, public relations, and business. Sometimes, the things taught in an undergraduate course are less tangible, but important in careers that involve complex reasoning, research skills and the ability to look at problems or artefacts through different lenses, such those traditionally taught in the now much-maligned arts degree. The rush to university has also led to a multi-tiered system in which graduates are ranked by employers - some universities don't even rate in many cases, making the degree that is obtained relatively worthless. It has also led to a lowering of quality as the lower-tiered universities invite students to enrol, simply to fill seats, rather than assessing their ability to undertake the course.
For some job roles, a degree is unimportant or not required at all, but young people are still being told that this is the only post-secondary option they should be aspiring towards. This is one of the major contributing factors behind the lack of qualified tradespeople and the well-established pattern of students drifting from one university course to the next, trying to find one that suits, when the answer to their career dilemma lies elsewhere.
This does not mean that people who really want and need to go to uni should not be able to. What we need is for governments to stop their social engineering and trying to force us into particular kinds of education and return to the natural order of things. People undertake university courses for a range of reasons; this should be encouraged and those who have the ability and desire should have a much easier pathway, one based on equality and fairness.
I find it untenable that we are regressing to that place in time where university education was only for the elite. The right of all Australians to an education that befits their career aspirations, work interests and abilities should be unquestioned. We should all be working hard at young people into a range of work areas, especially those outside the standard professions, but if we are to remain a progressive society students must not be the victims of their parents' economic status. Neither should any government, federal or state, allow education to become a pawn in their desire to 'balance the books' as this is a snake that will most definitely turn its head to poison the very society that created it.
What is fundamentally wrong with the direction the Abbott government is taking us is that it is preventing people from participating equally in society, reducing everything we do to an economic formula in which only the rich can win. Further to this, while Australia has always been known as the country of the 'fair go', this is becoming something our children will only read in history books (if they haven't banned them.).
