Are universities really the place for students to learn every job skill?

These days, it is common for universities to see themselves as civic institutions, focused on local employability. The government, too, increasingly sees employment outcomes as the ultimate measure of universities, and – as I can attest first-hand – students themselves are becoming ever more focused on the practical skills that universities give them.

But inherent in all this are the questions of whether university is always the right place for skills-based learning and what distinguishes higher education from other forms of learning.

This is a very live subject in my field, marketing and advertising.

I posit that students can study advertising from three perspectives. Reading advertisements explores their embedded meaning and interrogates how they tell a story about cultural norms. This belongs in the humanities and/or social sciences, in subjects such as cultural studies, critical theory, audience studies and media.

Making advertisements is much more hands-on. It involves designing and printing advertisements, as well as directing and producing video advertisements. This belongs in the school of arts.

Then there is managing advertisement, which is intended to prepare students to work in the fields of marketing, sales, branding and promotions. It belongs to the business school.

That is where I work – at a post-92 university in London. Yet while my teaching is, accordingly, focused on managing the advertising process, I am observing an increasing desire among the students to learn both the design and practical sides of the advertising processes alongside the theoretical side.

So should we be training graphics designers or marketers in the business schools? Or a bit of both? Do employers really expect marketing graduates to be able to use Canva, Adobe Illustrator, Final Cut Pro? Are there no longer opportunities for training on the job?

And should we respond accordingly? Should we expect our graduates to be versatile in analytics, too, so they can hit the ground running when they are recruited?

No doubt students’ desire to be all-rounders reflects a felt need to stand out from the growing numbers of marketing graduates, all looking for that coveted role in a top firm’s marketing department. But it is putting a lot of strain on academic staff and programme leaders in business schools as they try to come up with innovative programmes that meet the students’ demands.

It is essential to note that most of these academic staff are researchers with PhDs, who are unlikely to be conversant with practical tools and computer software. In their research, they invent fictitious advertisements and conceptual frameworks, but they don’t need Photoshop to do that.

There are enormous implications for students, universities and employers as we rethink the higher education model for the future. Would students prefer to go through internships, apprenticeships or further education to attain practical skills? How will universities keep updating and upgrading their programmes to meet the demands of their students? And can employers help to dial down their prospective staff’s unrealistic expectations of universities by selecting among the glut of marketing graduates on the basis of their innate abilities and core skills, rather than by whether they have an additional skill or ability to use a particular computer program?

Ultimately, of course, universities must work harder to make their curricula relevant. But the staffing issue is crucial. I believe that there is a grave risk of further dividing the research-focused universities from the teaching-focused ones. Many of the former may continue to recruit PhD graduates with publications in top journals to boost their rankings and research capabilities. In contrast, many of the latter will recruit industry expertise – potentially with no PhD or research record – to teach ever more skills-based courses that lack any kind of theoretical underpinning.

Students’ desire for a degree valued by employers is valid. However, they also need to be reminded to be realistic about what it is possible to fit into a standard three-year degree course. Ultimately, students need to take more responsibility for their own skills acquisition and not expect their universities to teach them absolutely everything that they will need to function in their first job.

University students can go online to learn other skills, pursue free certification courses, expand their network and become well-rounded graduates. That way, universities can continue to focus on their core responsibilities – teaching critical thinking – in the post-18 ecosystem.

Emmanuel Mogaji is a senior lecturer in advertising and marketing communications at the University of Greenwich.