Richard Shaw: Arts degrees teach what today's employers seek

Please don't denigrate and dismiss degrees like the BA on the basis of outdated assumptions and spurious logic. Photo / 123RF

Opinion

Good on Rosy Harper-Duff for passing on some excellent advice to people contemplating going to university. I wholeheartedly agree with much of what she has to say, but two of her comments are incorrect.

Harper-Duff claims "Degrees such as BCom and BAs are now providing less certain careers", and "People coming out with a degree which can be applied to a specific job are far better off". Neither is correct. These are examples of the muddled conclusions that can be reached when someone limits their opinions to their personal experience and fails to engage with the evidence.

Let's dispense with the assumptions and look at the evidence in support of one of the degrees Harper-Duff disparages.

Item 1 for the defence of the BA: the skills that people learn in a BA – such as how to think independently, communicate well, ask good questions, relate to others – are actually critical to the future of work.

The World Economic Forum estimates that nearly 50 per cent of all jobs will be significantly transformed or rendered obsolete by automation within the next two decades. And the impact will be spread around: a 2015 study by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand predicted that 75 per cent of labouring jobs, 20 per cent of management positions, and 12 per cent of professional positions in New Zealand may no longer exist in 2035.

Crucially, the research also shows that in this brave new world, technical skills are not going to be enough. People are also going to have to have the transferable (or "soft") skills that lie at the heart of degrees like the BA.

This leads directly to item two for the defence: the July-August 2017 Harvard Business Review pointed out that liberal arts degree graduates are increasingly in demand in the IT sector in the United States because of their abilities to use, interpret, and critically engage with vast amounts of information.

The piece noted that, "From Silicon Valley to the Pentagon, people are beginning to realize that to effectively tackle today's biggest social and technological challenges, we need to think critically about their human context: something humanities graduates happen to be well trained to do."

Item three: exactly the same thing is happening in New Zealand. On March 30, 2017, the New Zealand Herald quoted Mark Averill, the chief executive of PwC, saying, "These days it's all about people who can solve problems and are able to change and adapt quickly, so it's increasingly important for graduates to have broader, softer skills as well as a technical background. Strong grades are great, but we're looking past that to see the softer skills … their personal and social skills, so we can assess whether they have the ability to build relationships with clients and others."

And finally, your Honour, item 4: in an RNZ interview last year, Kim Campbell, chief executive of the Employers and Manufacturers Association, had this to say: "Soft skills are really important. Do you get along well with other people? Are you comfortable with other cultures? Are you able to learn new skills and are you willing to change as things change? Are you flexible in your attitudes to things? These things are hard to measure, but boy, are they important in building a career."

So, by all means get (accurate and up-to-date) career advice before you come to university, or take time off before deciding what you're going to do. But please don't denigrate and dismiss degrees like the BA on the basis of outdated assumptions and spurious logic.

Instead, just do this one thing: google "the future of work", scan the first three hits (oh, okay, the first one will do), then compare the skills those sources say are going to be in demand in the future with the graduate attributes for a BA. You'll find they're a near perfect fit.

• Richard Shaw is a professor in politics at Massey University.