A Race Between Education And Catastrophe

Abstract

I n discussing graduate employment there is a tempta tion to consider graduates as a distinctive group with in the workforce. But a new graduate about to take up employment is a young person whose education has been continued longer than that of the majority of his (or her) contemporaries. Most of those who now gradu ate would not, but a generation ago, have proceeded beyond secondary schooling. We do them no service, nor do we help potential employers, if we let our thoughts be channelled by this kind of categorization. With this in mind, I shall look briefly in this paper at the future for the multitude of human activities we have come to know collectively as ' work', then consider some of the relationships which exist, or are assumed to exist, between education and work. At that stage I shall con sider in more general context the special case of gradu ates. Finally, I shall present some random thoughts on graduates in employment and on the utilization of the resource which graduates can represent for employers.