Education, business and employment – A vicious circle

University education is meant to guide graduates to be independent thinkers and apply what they learnt, with intellect and knowledge and acquired skills in solving issues problems in their employment or elsewhere. However, modern education builds up skills acquiring portfolio of certificates offered by leading manufacturers of various industry sectors. Here the argument is, are people studying for employment or to enhance the knowledge base? – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara 

By Joseph L. Jayawardena 

University education in the present context is in the backburner and industrial certificates have gained momentum lured of opportunities for green pastures. The trend seems detrimental to the quality of the education system that flourished hitherto for centuries being progressively labelled as unfit with the advent of the digital age. 

The unknown truth is it’s a hoax inculcated by multinational vendors, manufacturers and irrational educational reformists. Although this article focuses on ICT sector, it is equally applies to other fields and industries 

The three pillars of education, business and employment with guarantee of quality deliverables, which I see as a vicious circle, is often challenged and of their mutual relationships in the neo business model of current era. The notion of tertiary education, in particular university education is construed by the business as ineffective and doesn’t provide a pathway for good career prospects and find employment. 

University education is meant to guide graduates to be independent thinkers and apply what they learnt, with intellect and knowledge and acquired skills in solving issues problems in their employment or elsewhere. However, modern education is not what we believed traditionally, but to build up skills acquiring portfolio of certificates offered by leading manufacturers of various industry sectors. Here the argument is, are people studying for employment or to enhance the knowledge base, how one could differentiate these two propositions?

The vendors and manufactures have always played a key role in discrediting the university degrees and substitute with their certificates as a value proposition for better employment. Recently, we witnessed a big move of school leavers or even the unemployed graduates to follow their courses for gaining employment. 

It is apparent the popularity of the certificates by looking at LinkedIn profiles of members post nominals. This is another impetus for the ICT service providers and keep deploying ICT gear where they see a large base of certificate holders out there to support services for sustaining the business, I would say short term. 

The current business models are geared for growth in business revenue, less consideration have been given to the manpower resources though these organisations have well equipped HR presence. Present day recruitments, especially in ICT sector are rarely based on assessing the fundamental knowledge but rather based of industrial certificates. This mode of recruitment closely matches with the revenue earning business models. Therefore, it is doubtful that such recruits will be able to adapt to change in environment and thus maintain sustainable business growth often resulting mass retrenchments. 

The leading vendors/manufactures have over the years managed to infiltrate into tertiary education market and influence changing the curriculum in line with their products. The sad saga was that even universities have accepted and adopted the need for this change thus deviating from the traditional model of education. 

Under the guise of modernisation and to cater the increasing demand for certificates, many technical colleges have been now changed and named as universities all around the world. 

I believe most of the traditional academics will agree with me and support not to bring industrial, trade credentials offering through universities. As education is being transformed to a business model, providing degrees aligned with employment demand will no doubt support the growth and sustainability of business. However, my strong belief is that, there is no issue of accommodating these curriculum into technical colleges or TAFEs (Technical and Further Education) and if necessary to improve cash flow in universities to cater this demand and supplement to satisfy as a niche market. I also strongly disagree with classifying university degrees as tertiary qualifications. 

In the ICT market, there are two distinct business models, viz: service providers and manufacturers or agents selling their products and services. These business models always have mismatches, disagreements especially while negotiating service contracts but interact to maximise their individual revenues. These commercial negotiations have an edge for the vendor to leverage the abundance of trained resources available in the market. Vendors and manufactures have foresight strategy creating the background work offering certificates for various level of operational needs. 

Service businesses see this potential, and the abundance of resources and make their strategy to stick to one vendor ignoring the monopoly that will eventuate in the long-term operations, if no counter measures are taken at the outset they fall into this trap. 

Lately, we have seen the world-leading universities too offer short course leading to certificates through online service providers as offshoot business. Although some provide good subject content and exposure, they are targeted for employment-oriented niche market. 

Finally, I personally believe the university degrees direct undergraduates to use the fundamentals in resolving issues and problem solving with proper understanding, whereas the certificate holders have limited knowledge of the particular trade and tackle problem within the technology framework, issues and bug fixes are mostly attempted on trial and error basis and without logical root cause analysis approach. Therefore, a clear differentiation is needed between certificate and degree holders. 

Universities should also make appropriate strategy whether to integrate such courses into the undergraduate curriculum or not without losing the level of recognition and the ranking.

(The writer MBA, MPhil, BSc Eng. (Hons), C Eng. FIET.)