Universities failing industry, business body claims

By Dick Ahlstrom. Isme says entrepreneurship must become central element of third-level training. Irish universities have rejected claims by a business lobby that third-level education here was delivering graduates ill-prepared to enter business.
The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (Isme) yesterday said the universities were “failing industry” and called on the third-level sector to stop paying “lip-service” to entrepreneurship education. It should be part of their “core identity”.
It criticised the universities for their large classes, poor teaching methods, dry academic content and a lack of relevance for real business life. “The result is a graduate unfit for work, ill-prepared for business life and error prone,” it said.
Dublin City University president Prof Brian Mac Craith dismissed the claims yesterday saying entrepreneurship training was spreading through all faculties at graduate and post-graduate level.
The university had launched UStart in January, a programme that offered undergraduates an accelerated scheme to help them set-up and launch business ideas. This had the financial support of the J P Morgan Chase Foundation, Prof MacCraith said. Eight student teams were already working on the programme.
Last March the university became the first in Ireland to be designated an Ashoka Changemaker Campus, joining a network of colleges and universities supporting the field of social entrepreneurship in education, he said. The university now styled itself the “university of enterprise”. Read more...