Nearly half of last year’s graduates believe that
university degrees failed to provide them with up-to-date IT
skills, according to a survey of visitors to Graduate-Jobs.com, a
jobs site for university leavers.
Forty six per cent of graduates said that their degree had
failed to provide them with current IT skills, raising questions
about the standard of IT training offered by universities.
Fifty per cent of graduates said that with hindsight they would
have avoided debt and had a three- or four-year headstart by not
going to university at all. Only 40% said they would have still
gone to university knowing what they know now.
IT recruitment company FDM interviewed 500 recent graduates who
used Graduate-Jobs.com. About 53% of graduates said vocational
training would have made them more employable than their degree
courses, while 27% said vocational qualifications would be no more
useful than their degrees for finding a job.
The greatest obstacle to graduates finding work was the lack of
relevance of their qualifications, according to 50% of those
surveyed.
Age and gender were believed to be the greatest barriers by 4%
and 2% of students respectively.