The Economist's Emma Duncan explains why education's production line stinks

Emma Duncan in the middle.

The Times of London is back in the good books. Not too long ago Sir David Bell was exalting the sanctity of the traditional university degree: he smacked down the employability demands of students and exhalted the intellectual integrity of the degree. The Times reported on his worries in a report entitled, 'Intellectual integrity of degrees is at risk, says university chief.' I smacked that idea down on the Huffington Post here.

So after that the Times was in the bad books. I really wasn't impressed. For too many people, the traditional degree is causing information and skills asymmetries. The academic hand does not fit the professional working glove. To address this, universities need to teach real world skills and be associated with industry and the job market. One of my favourite quotes on this is this:

"The value of an education has nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with awareness." 

- David Foster Wallace

Employability versus The Traditional University Degree - An Open Letter to Sir David Bell (part 3)

Sir David Bell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Reading.

The Socratic dialogue continues.

Part 1 of this dialectical series was began by me with an open letter published on the Huffington Post and on Ambitious Minds which addressed Sir David Bell who had made suggestions in the Times newspaper that a growing push towards "employability" of university degrees was putting the 'intellectual integrity of degrees at risk.'

In Part 2 Sir David Bell responded to my riposte and gave his own counter-argument. I have since published what he had to say on my blog which you can read it here. Sir David Bell made a number of fair and interesting points.

In Part 3 of the dialectic I would like to give further response by broadening my argument, and by citing more of the commentators and authorities that I've been following and reading assiduously in recent months. To begin with, I would like to present three testimonies that all give a dim account of the "status quo" university education.

Firstly, to start with Dale J Stephens (@DaleJStephens), the founder of the Uncollege movement said of his university experience in the US: