The Future of Education

Across the globe, in the United States, the Middle East, Europe and Australasia an increasingly large number of employers are dissatisfied with the work readiness of business graduates. Employers are increasingly frustrated by business graduates who do not have the higher order learning, written communication, problem solving, decision making, negotiation and task prioritization skills necessary to be useful employees when they graduate. This suggests that in large parts of the world, the higher education sector is largely ineffective with respect to producing work ready business graduates. This results in businesses needing to invest large sums of money to train business graduates before the new recruits can be integrated within the mainstream workforce. This paper seeks to understand the underlying causes of this skills gap by reporting on a series of expert interviews with faculty and industry leaders in the Middle East and Europe. The results suggest that the skills gap is already evident when school leavers enter business schools, business degrees should focus on skills-based learning and students should undertake significant on-the-job training whilst at university.

Keywords: skills gap, work ready, business graduates;