The current debate about the worth of higher education has focussed on the future value of degrees for graduates, such value being talked about largely in terms of future income. But such conversation raises a wider question about the purpose of a university degree.
Clearly, for some degrees it is obvious. Health-related degrees, like medicine and biomedical sciences, teacher education, and engineering are all examples of professional degrees, where the graduate outcomes are clear. Graduates will secure a job in a profession which requires particular skills and knowledge, and often a deep understanding of health and safety in its broadest sense.
But these are only some of the degrees available and many degree routes, including the wide range of biology and related programmes, are not really there to prepare graduates for a specific role. Rather, they should be a preparation for the very wide range of opportunities that exist for graduates, both inside and outside biological sciences. Academic degrees which do not prepare graduates for a professional career focus on specialist subject knowledge and analysis, without worrying overmuch about the wider context in which graduates would work. Undertaking a course like this may be seen as a privilege for those that can afford it, with those that can’t aiming at degrees associated with a professional career. However, the ability to think critically, solve problems and innovate – finding solutions to old and new challenges – are skills common to all study areas, and all employers are looking for them, as well as specific skills and knowledge according to the subject, like laboratory and field experience for biologists.
Employers have been crying out for an improvement to this provision for nearly two decades, since the original Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries (ABPI) report in 2005,Footnote1 which triggered the development of biology accreditation. Accreditation is an external check on standards, which ensures that degrees are fit for purpose and good value for increasingly pressured students and graduates. This need for external review of university programmes, through accreditation, highlights a weakness of the highly devolved UK Higher Education system – the challenge between cost of delivery and the fixed price paid per student. Coupled with a competitive recruitment environment, where success is measured (and recorded in ‘league tables’) by the number of firsts and upper second-class degrees, this has the danger of leading to grade inflation.
At a time of increasing global challenge and the need for national solutions, students want and need degrees which equip them for the changing workplace, so that they can support themselves and develop the economy, as well as getting a good return on the investment they and their families have made. This debate is well understood internationally, particularly outside of the EU, where national needs are expressed by asking universities to teach a broad general education curriculum, which often includes many of the skills that employers are asking for. A good example can be seen in Singapore, where the University of Singapore not only prepares students for their subject in a world class research environment, but ensures they are also prepared for the world after University by insisting that students take courses that ‘prepare students to: think critically and communicate ideas clearly, meet the challenges of a rapidly changing and increasingly interconnected world, build meaningful and responsible relationships with communities’.Footnote2 This approach equips students and graduates for modern life more broadly than just in the workplace – such as giving them the analytical skills needed to make evidence-based judgements and personal choices about topics like vaccination or sustainable practices, but also more generally in the face of a storm of mis- and disinformation, and to be engaged and responsible citizens within their communities.
It makes sense, therefore, for Universities to ensure that their biological sciences degrees equip graduates with these same key skills and competencies. And it helps departments and students to get an external view of their delivery, to help them develop that learning within the biology curriculum, so that employers can be assured that students are ‘up to scratch’, and students know that their degree is the best foundation they can get for the future.