Innovation Profile 025

When should academic and business studies merge?

The majority of students leaving universities and colleges will work in commercial companies or in public sector organisations where understanding of business approaches is needed. Nearly all will require some business knowledge and skills.

One of the roles of education is to enable young people to develop the knowledge and skills to be successful in the world of work. At what point should business studies and skills become part of a student's education, alongside academic study?

There should surely not be a sudden change when students move from studying an academic course into a job that requires business skills. The way in which academic capabilities will be used in work must inform how students understand their possible future careers. And managers in business should surely be able to expect more of new employees than purely academic knowledge and skills.

The balance between 'learning on the job' and 'academic education' is of course very different in different places and different areas of study. There are even some schools that give teenagers experience of setting up and running 'mini-businesses'. But every educator responsible for syllabuses and courses should now give this matter some thought.

Computers and the networked world closely integrate business imperatives with the way that many people work. Business knowledge and skills are now more necessary, for more people. But as is often the case, as well as bringing difficult changes, technology is also providing help. A wide variety of business courses are available online.

Go to http://www.netg.co.uk to see a good example of the range of business courses available. As NETg is part of Thomson Learning you will find courses from all over the world, in many languages, and from internationally respected providers. Individual course modules may take only 25 - 30 hours to complete and could easily be combined with academic study, and could lead to important additional qualifications.

The questions for educators are such things as -

• who decides what study of business is relevant, lecturer or student?
• who pays - the educational institution or the student?
• what facilities are available for students to access online courses?
• can colleges and universities forge partnerships with international providers, to select the best courses available and to tailor them for local use?

These may be difficult questions but it is surely not an option to leave students in ignorance of what kind of business knowledge and skills will be required of them when they graduate. The moment when you need business and commercial skills, in order to be successful in your career, is not the best time to start to acquire these skills.

The NETg Company Profile on our web site will give you an overview of the company.

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If you know of examples of innovative use of ICT-for-learning that others would be interested in, please email innovations@eep-edu.org

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