McDonald: tackle skills gaps or risk economy being held back

The UK needs “much greater national coordination” of its skills agenda to meet industry demand for graduates, a university leader said.

Sir Jim McDonald, principal of the University of Strathclyde, told the British Council’s Going Global conference that closer collaboration between higher education institutions and employers would be a key part of the solution.

“As a sector we have to move away from the expectation of having a transactional relationship between industry and university,” he said. “That doesn’t serve our sector very well.”

Sir Jim, president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said that the UK had a shortage of about 500,000 people with the required skills in engineering alone, which was going to be an “inhibition to the UK realising its economic potential”.

“There’s a dawn of realisation now that we have to get much greater national coordination,” he told the conference, held in Edinburgh.

“We don’t have much time so there’s that imperative now. There’s nothing like a burning bridge to focus attention.”

Sir Jim said that the UK was “awakening” to the skills gap, with the Westminster government setting up a number of skills task forces in the past year alone.

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But he warned that there was still a “great deal of inertia” in the system, and said universities must include professional and digital skills in their curricula.

He said businesses must not “stand at the gates of our universities shouting their demands through the letterbox”, but coinvest alongside them.

In the same session, Shashank Shah, from the thinktank Niti Aayog, outlined the skills challenges facing India. It will be the biggest source of growth in the global workforce over the next 25 years, he said.

“That’s the kind of human capital responsibility that India has in the global context,” Dr Shah said.

“Hence, providing them [with] the right kind of education, skills and competencies is very, very important.”

By 2035, India will be the largest higher education system in the world, with 80 million students, said Dr Shah.

“That’s the magnitude of the task ahead of us. The next 25 years is a very vital period for India to make a very important difference in the quality of education.”

The National Education Policy of India – a roadmap for the next 25 years – is focused on three core issues – access, quality and future readiness, he said.

“If 10 million students are going to graduate from higher education institutions and are going to seek jobs, no developed country is going to be able to create jobs at that level.

“Hence enabling students to be entrepreneurs and job creators is very vital.”

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com