Good universities provide a well-rounded education and inspiration for many of our smartest young people. These talented youngsters will later enter a variety of professions and businesses, but need not make specific career decisions at a young age. They can do so later on the basis of a comprehensive education which prepares them for many future opportunities.
Great universities are cauldrons of ideas and experimentation, which enrich human life with intellectual vigour, and lead to inventions, innovations and new ways of thinking.
These universities should *not* become glorified vocational training colleges whose primary aim is to prepare students for present jobs. That is the role of genuine vocational colleges, apprenticeships and internships.
Future jobs. Our world is changing so fast that in only 1o years many todays' jobs will not exist. The university should focus on developing critical thinking and creative problem solution abilitues development.
At the first we have to decide our university is a 2ndG.U. and or 3rd G.U. I believe that we have to persuade our universities educational programs leading to THIRD GENERATION UNIVERSITY.
basic knowledge and skills pertaining to a subject/discipline is the basic requirement, but enhancing value addition needs an expanded set of knowledge and skills, meaning that ALL courses within a program should contribute to the holistic development of a graduate who can meet future needs... these advanced skills of critical/analytical/communication/ethical will fit into new requirements as they are trained as such... weakness in these key areas will not help the graduates to survive the real world...
The main problem is that niversities are quite unable to anticipate the future jobs and most of them consider that it is not a part of their business which is to deliver knowledge ! But of course this is one of their main weaknesses as we can see with a lot of graduated students looking for adequate jobs and high level of unemployment in some developed countries like France..
Jobs in the core areas remain more or less in same demand with the varying time frame. But the recent job market has introduced variety of job demand which includes many jobs of obsolete nature. In this circumstance universities must focus on future market demand for such target jobs.
I don't think universities can accurately predict future jobs. The fundamental role of a university is to teach people how to think and how to learn. If that occurs than students will be ready for present and future jobs.
I believe that matching education with jobs has come to a new and variant scope. The future would be very revolutionary ,so that curriculum lags would be inevitable . The mission of universities in this situation is to enable persons for fast learning and adaptation, also it had been a fact that on job training has been prerequisite in all generation of tertiary education.
Preparing students for future jobs is a challenge for each university. At the present time, there are no human resources who have knowledge to adjust curriculum to future job demands. I believe that the role of the lecturer should change. The lecturer should be a mentor, facilitator ... who should teach students how to learn. Knowing how to learn would prepare students for fast adjustments in the labor market.
Universities are cradles of learning, building, restructuring past domain of knowledge and reshaping it into Wisdom by sharing their experiences and knowledge to the test of time.However modern day global education has become very superficial and breeding ground of 10-6pm type of clergy.The universities are producing only the market oriented labourers which have no creative talent nor much motivation to do life satisfying jobs.In oreder to create future good jobs we need to revamp our whole mindset and bring back life force into our class rooms where one can learn new ideas and celebrate each day of his studies.
In my opinion, both alternatives should be in their focus.
The future demand of many current jobs will be high in the future, and then it is necessary universities prepare students to do these jobs. So they should be in their focus. In some other cases current jobs will disappear, then universities should gradually left them until marginal costs would be equal than marginal incomes.
On the other hand, new jobs will appear. Some of them will be more demanded in the near future and others in the long term. Those which will have more demand should be a university focus too. If they have in the short or middle term a low demand, then the university should plan when they will focused in them. The decision will depend on what is stated in their strategy plan. (It is supposed they have linked their strategy plan with the market needs).
University system effectively works via periodic review of academic programs & courses. These reviews reflects national & international standards & mostly sustains industry & community requirements. Graduates should be obviously equipped with knowledge & skills apt for both current & future scenarios.