Industry and universities must work together for long-term success

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has recently released a report which outlines the need for business and universities to work more closely together to ensure the UK ‘has the skills and knowledge necessary for its long-term success’. It highlights the role that higher education (HE) plays in the success of the UK in global economy and how that success ‘will increasingly depend on the development of high-value added sectors in services and manufacturing. These in turn will require a highly trained workforce, rich with graduate-level skills’. They outline six priorities that business wants from the HE sector:
– Support high-quality research and teaching in increasingly challenging circumstances
– Raise the numbers of quality graduates in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM)
– Ensure all graduates have employability skills
– Improve the environment for university-business collaboration on research and innovation
– Support diversity in the HE system to cater for an ever-wider range of student and business needs. For the joinery industry, these recommendations seem key to enhancing the skills set of individuals entering or up-skilling in our industry. If adopted, we could see more skilled graduates with relevant degrees entering the job market. Our challenge will be to ensure that we are guiding and working with universities to ensure that they are equipping gradates with the skills we need. Also, universities are aware of us as an industry, the opportunities we can offer and that they are promoting out industry careers.  The report continues with recommendations to reform the ‘financing, structure and mission of our universitiesto sustain and strengthen their position in a rapidly changing environment’ and that this needs to be done now, not later, if we are to continue to compete with HE sectors in the international arena. The government is already putting less into higher education than other leading economies and it is important that the brunt of the investment gap does not fall on the students themselves causing a reduction in student numbers that cannot afford the fees. Business must also do more. CBI sets out that employers need to invest more in graduate recruitment and that we must promote STEM subjects if we are to get the calibre of graduate applying to our businesses. It is also important that we open our doors to undergraduates to undertake placements or internships as part of their course. Universities themselves need to improve their capacity to deliver workforce training and we must do more to make our training needs clear, and institutions need to ensure they are providing graduates with not just academic knowledge but quality employability skills.
You can read executive summary of the CBI report here or delve into the detail of the 6 chapters by clicking here.