Hong Kong graduates should realise that university is not all about learning job skills

It is unfortunate that university education is often mischaracterised as a tool for improving employment prospects (“University graduates face tough competition and low salaries as they enter Hong Kong’s crowded workforce”, May 15).

With the proliferation of tertiary institutions, receiving higher education is no longer the privilege of the elite. Yet, a more educated population does not necessarily come with more employable jobseekers – because the primary goal of university education is never about vocational training.

The association between the two is naturally formed because, for many, university education marks the end of their academic career and heralds the beginning of their work career.

Plus, most universities are increasingly commercialised, as is evident in their perpetual pursuit of ranking in league tables published in university guides. The authorities join in the chorus and misconstrue universities – and indeed education as a whole – as the answer to the social demand for human resources.

The Study Subsidy Scheme for Designated Professions/Sectors is a prime example of this pragmatic thinking. All these trade away the soul of university education.

Universities should be distinguished from secondary schools and vocational training colleges, in that universities inspire new thoughts, advance our understanding of the world and, most importantly, foster an intellectual mind.

The emphasis shifts from regurgitating facts to discovering new knowledge, which explains why the courses should not be perceived as an extension of secondary education.

Nor should they be vocationally oriented. There is a widely accepted belief that law, medicine, education, engineering and accounting programmes, for example, have a heavy work-related component and the education, therefore, prepares students for future employment.

I would argue that this is only the by-product of the primary goal. If students aspire to acquire only vocational skills from skilled professionals and receive on-the-job training, they will realise that university is not the ideal place for this purpose. A viable alternative is vocational training college.

The type of learning universities promote involves in-depth analysis and knowledge construction based on scholarly evidence and theoretical underpinning. Only after the students have developed higher-order thinking skills will there be an implication about their employability.

Hence, a university is not to blame for its failure to equip students with vocational skills, since this does not form part of its mission. The onus is on the students to carry out career planning to ensure that they acquire the required skills in addition to their studies.

John Ng, Lai Chi Kok