The Chronicle of Higher Education had an interesting article recently reporting results of two surveys. One survey conducted by Gallup in partnership with the Lumina Foundation indicated that only 11 percent of business leaders strongly agree that today’s graduates have the skills and competencies that their businesses need. In contrast, another Gallup survey of college and university chief academic officers found that 96% were “extremely or somewhat confident” in their institution’s ability to prepare students for workforce success. Data from the first survey also showed that only 14% of adult Americans strongly agree that graduates in the U.S. are prepared for success in the workplace.
It seems that we have a major disconnect between educators and employers and even the general public about whether our graduates are really being prepared for workforce success. This data refers to colleges and university graduates. However, if graduates are not prepared by college graduation, they are certainly not being prepared by our public secondary schools. Perhaps this is why education has been so slow to change. If educators don’t understand the needs, they are very unlikely to meet them.
The article is at the link below. However, note that only subscribers can read the entire article:
http://chronicle.com/article/BusinessAcademic-Leaders/144977/?cid=pm