Changing a system where the incentive-structure is all wrong
Often people tell me they’re impressed by how passionate I am about education. But actually, it’s not my passion for education that motivates me.
I’m passionate about achieving change in a system where the incentive-structure is all wrong.
In the following, I will outline some of the most worrying developments in higher education I have found.
1. Universities aren’t shaping employable students
Much has been discussed about the purpose of universities and I want to take a clear stand here: The primary purpose of university education is to produce job-ready students. Of course, university is also about growing as a person, broadening your mindset and touch upon diverse topics to form knowledgeable human beings (get ready for a stats-overload).
The truth is, only 23% of students are reporting a general motivation to learn more and gain knowledge without linking it to work or career aspirations whilst 58% report job and career outcomes as their primary motivation. When it comes to employers, their number one priority of choosing universities to recruit from is whether or not colleges produce job-ready students. Employers all over the world are not satisfied by how this factor is currently being fulfilled and only 11% of c-level business executives strongly agree that business graduates have the skills they are looking for.
It’s a global trend, and in tech and digital studies these numbers aren’t too different. In Amsterdam a recent paper published by Amsterdam Economics Board and Start UP Amsterdam analyzed the talent market together with 30 top tech/digital companies. When it comes to hiring tech talent most companies agree that universities are not teaching the right skills, that it takes companies a long time and much investment to get juniors up to speed and that there is insufficient connection between universities and employers.
The consequences are poorly prepared graduates, manifesting in graduates who think they are well-prepared, showing overconfidence where there’s nothing to be confident about. The below table shows how in 7 out of 8 crucial employability skills defined by hundreds of employers. Students consistently rate themselves significantly higher in core-skills than employers do, which illustrates the issue beautifully.
Students are not to blame, how could the know better? Because of the fact that universities are under pressure to get as many students through the graduation funnel as possible, all that matters whilst you are at university is academic achievement. Usually students are only incentivized to get good grades in order for them to graduate as soon as possible. They aren’t incentivized to spend time next to their studies doing relevant jobs, doing extra-curricular activities, learning new languages or to look for alternative ways to learn and gain new skills outside of the classroom.
This is a shame because when you ask employers, those are the things that really matter and academic achievement is one of the lowest priorities on their list. Encouraging students to just focus on their academic track record clearly doesn’t lead to the desired outcome most students enter university for in the first place.
2. Obsession with research = poor teaching
Universities have become obsessed with research. Even universities of applied sciences where the practical application of subjects are the main differentiator, see themselves forced into doing more research in order to get accreditations (more about this in a bit). Accreditations, rankings, and international prestige which are mainly influenced by research output, have increasingly become the number one priority for universities. William Deresiewicz describes in his book Excellent Sheep: “An efficient college today isn’t one with the most teacher of-the-year awards, but the one with the most research output“
In the past weeks I have found out that as a consequence, some universities even chose to lay off staff (or not hire anyone) that does not do academic research. Professors’s success are mainly measured by the quantity and quality of their research and based on that they will receive additional contracts. And who suffers from this incentive structure? You guessed right, the students. In some cases, as described in the book Excellent Sheep: “Ambitious academics regarded teaching undergraduates as a distraction and a burden“ and as result many of them put the minimum amount of effort into delivering good teaching. It makes sense to educate chemistry students in a very academic and scientific way. However, for example, business-related studies, where practically no one will end up in academia and where content should be highly applicable, this approach makes zero sense. The reality is that in these subjects most universities end up having professors teach those subjects, who are researchers from the fields of sociology, humanities or psychology and haven’t worked a single day of their life in a business environment.
Not much improvement is in sight. “I could get the worse teaching evaluation — but as long as I deliver my research the faculty wouldn’t care much” I came across quotes like these from professors I’ve talked to several times. I was shocked. Many universities view students as mere research enablers who pay tuition (or the government pays the tuition) which is then used to offer grants to researchers. So is it any surprise that 60% of students find their lectures boring, and that universities who brag about their high rankings — which are entirely measured by quality of research — score repeatedly the lowest when it comes to overall teaching and student satisfaction (it is in Dutch but basically it explains the case of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) where this has happened)?
Though, as long as these universities produce enough graduates, governments do not care about this issue. Until, the university receives extremely bad student evaluations several years in a row. In one case, the government, after several years of poor teaching evaluation, warned a university and required them to invest in improving their teaching.
How about we change this incentive structure to hold universities accountable for what society, employers (check out the graph above, teaching quality matters much more than research) and students expect from them? Great quality teaching by capable staff with up-to-date content.
3. Universities spend more time and money competing than innovating
Another insight I got from the conversations with university management and staff in the last weeks, was that universities spent generally more time and money on competing with each other than they do innovating. One professor told me: “In all honesty, universities today don’t differentiate, they compete.” Instead of investing in modern technologies which can facilitate teaching, more trainings or invest in more staff to decrease the professor/student ratio, universities spend hundreds of thousands of euros on accreditations. Sure, accreditation are some sort of a quality control, however their main purpose is to help the university increase their reputation on a national and international level and join certain ranking groups.
4. Complacency is one of the biggest issues in higher education
I am a firm believer that education should be free or at least affordable for everyone. However, due to the fact that most public universities in Europe have kind of a monopoly, students don’t really have alternatives. This means that established institutions get students, hence money from the government, no matter what. Imagine a business that knows it will have guaranteed income independent of how good or bad their service is? Crazy right? Well that’s the case with the higher education industry (at least in most of Europe). As a result, university leaders become increasingly complacent and have very little incentive to innovate and change anything about the same-olde approach that has made them the number-one go to place for knowledge acquisitions.
Things are changing. In countries where governments want to increase the privatization of education and grant degree-giving power to more institutions, official universities protest out of fear of losing their status. Universities will need to put this complacency aside if the want to survive in the 21st century. In a life-long learning society it is becoming irrelevant how you got your skills, what matters is you have them and that you don´t stop learning. Employers today are following this trend and online course providers, bootcamps, one-year courses or company-lead education programs are increasing in popularity, making up for the failure of universities to educate their students adequately.
Finishing thoughts:
Writing this blog is a weird feeling. I love education and there is nothing that makes me more happy than seeing young people thrive in their abilities. Of course there are many institutions and lecturers who are doing a great job of actually empowering their students to do so. However most universities nowadays are not providing up to date education and many students and graduates are successful in spite of university and not because of it.
Whoever made it until here, thank you. It seems you really care about this topic. In fact, most people I talk, no matter if they are working in education or not, do care deeply.
I will continue to work on concepts which can help improve the effectiveness of higher education. With our start up, Fypster, we are building a platform that allows professors to find and book professionals for guest-lectures, from the subject they teach in a matter of clicks. Like this we aim to help professors make their courses more “real-life” and to involve companies and professionals more in the teaching of on-demand skills. I’ve also given a TedX at KTH in Stockholm in December (video to be released soon), after which I started the YoungLecturerMovement. Based on my experience, involving experienced students or recent graduates in the teaching process can be one way to increase relevancy and student’s motivation by having young role models as their lecturers.
While I know that these initiatives are for now only a drop in the bucket, I encourage every professor to start thinking critically and promoting change from within. Decision makers to change their mindset to put the student back in the centre of interest. And last but not least for edtech entrepreneurs to help find solutions that can help higher education institutions turn things around for millions of students. Change is needed.
