Subject knowledge versus transferable skills

In the traditional university subjects, the jargon of transferable skills has been ever-present for a while now. For a teacher this is a pretty tough tightrope to walk, whether to train your students to be useful and confident members of society or to teach them history, or English literature, or whatever your subject area is. My husband who is a teacher but not in the university sector asks me how I feel knowing that many students have chosen my subject because it is easy and they can pass it, rather than through any love of history. How can I reconcile my love for all things historical with teaching people who just want to get through three years at university for all sorts of social and economic reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the subject?

It is a real challenge. Of course realistically I know that maybe one or two students in any year group will go on to postgraduate work and perhaps one every couple of years might decide to be an historian. But to teach people to be great scholars, to love learning and to be able to function in the world of work is just as important, and hopefully a love of one’s subject will be a by-product of that.

In terms of the job market, to get an academic position many skills are necessary other than those traditional associated with doing an arts degree. Universities are gradually realising that and updating their postgraduate training programmes to include a good deal of skills and methods training alongside an in-depth focus on subject content. This change has mostly been driven by the requirements of the funding councils who will not back a course that doesn’t include this element. So even for postgraduates, many of whom do go into academia, the skills part of a course is vital; it’s even more so for undergraduates. I’m going off this afternoon to train my third years in a ‘gobbets’ exercise, which basically asks them to précis and analyse a short primary source extract. ‘Of what use is that in the real world’, I hear you cry! In the world of work being able to write reports, conduct research projects is vital, if I can show my students that this sort of activity will be useful when they go into marketing, recruitment or whatever, then I have done my job.