It's all a matter of degree...

(from 2013)

I was reading in the newspaper recently that a consensus of British employers believes that over half the University graduates with UK degrees come out of the system unemployable. How on earth can that be?

In the old days, when work was plentiful, there were choices that suited all kinds of people. Those who were going to be doctors or lawyers or teachers, or whatever, studied, got their degrees, and became what they wanted to be. Those with an aptitude for trades and crafts also trained, but the skills they learned were more practical, hands-on, for the work at hand. Generally, people were happy with the niche they chose for themselves. And if your goal in life was making money, it seemed that it was the builders and plumbers who actually became millionaires.

But then the rot set in. The politicians in Britain decided that everyone should have a degree. (Maybe it was a way of keeping the official unemployment figures down prior to certain elections). But – it wasn’t just being given the opportunity; the problem was the pressure to go for it or feel inadequate if they didn’t. It didn’t matter whether people could deal with the academic pressure, it didn’t matter whether they could cope with the mountain of debt it would leave them with, and it didn’t matter that the degree often had no bearing on any employment prospects – it had to be a degree. All sorts of strange courses were invented (dubbed Mickey Mouse courses by the media), designed to provide qualifications in subjects that had no chance in the market place. Because “everybody” had them, it promptly devalued the concept even more. Employers, particularly in service industries, looked for workers who were personable, and who had people skills. Graduates found themselves turned down for the actual jobs available because they were “over qualified.” By over qualified it meant that, if something better ever came along, the worker would be off like a shot. That was no good for an employer and frustrating for an employee. Some found it useful to play down their academic qualifications. There’s a joke in Britain with more than a grain of truth in it – What do you say to someone with a first class honors degree? Big Mac and large fries please.

So why am I having a toot about this today? Probably because in my profession, the only entry for nearly ten years now has been by having a first class honors degree. Prior to that, you could enter at various levels by various routes, and find your niche – and earn a living.

One can see the need for “closure” and “standards” in medically allied subjects. In happened over time with nurses and medical doctors and dentists and physiotherapists, and rightly so. For my profession – podiatry (still sometimes called chiropody in Britain) – it seemed to take a lot longer.

Britain is a land of animal lovers, but even Brits found it incongruous that horses hooves (or should it be hoofs?) were protected by legislation in 1975 (with the Farriers act) and human feet had to wait until legislation in 2004 – and even then, it was only indicative rather than functional closure – i.e. protection of titles but not a protection of what people could still do to other people’s lower extremities and charge money for it.

So as chiropody/podiatry evolved in Britain they introduced first a diploma – which meant thousands of hours of practical training – which really made sense for a hands-on profession – but then upped it to a degree. Theory, theory, theory.

So people got their BSc. Wow – and now, here is your work, cutting old ladies toenails...  What? But, but – I’m qualified to do a million times more than that! Sure – but this is the bread and butter work. If you want to earn a living and pay the rent, get down off your high horse, and work.

(Personally, in my book, unlike American Podiatry which is a different profession with far greater scope, the British model of chiropody or podiatry should have become a craft – like hairdressing. In fact, it started out from the same source – barbers cut hair, cut corns, and applied leeches – the first chiropody society was advertised in the hairdressing journals. So a craft is respectable – you need training to be a hairdresser – it is not just the nuts and bolts of going snip, snip, but using chemicals that could turn a client’s hair green or worse, that requires a lot of training – no argument. But in Britain anyway, hairdressing at its basic level does not require a degree. Yet.)

I regularly contribute to boards where assorted foot people slug it out – I am there under various guises, so unless you know me already you won’t identify me. And on these boards are whole rafts of new graduates who cannot hack it. They scream abuse (there is no other word for it) at those mortals lesser qualified than themselves. Technically that includes me – but the mindset is all their problem, not mine.

So now, here am I, a humble podiatrist (although I deliberately never use the title), sunny and happy, who runs a good business. Who trained before ever there was a sniff of degree in the air. Who for nearly thirty-five years has done so, keeping it the size I wanted so I could concentrate on voluntary work, while still feeding my family. Who even now turns work away. And here around me are newly minted podiatrists with their shiny new degrees who can’t make a living. Who somehow think it is my fault. Or attack private schools that knock out other people who treat feet – now calling themselves Foot Health Professionals – which sounds a lot grander than podiatrist to the general public anyway. And some of these people, doing short courses, also make a good living at the basic end of foot care.

What has gone wrong?

It is back to points touched on in earlier paragraphs - the need for not just academic skills, but practical skills and people skills. You can have all the theory in the world, but if you can’t actually do the physical work – then you are sunk. (The physical work for me sometimes involves lying flat out on the floor to deal with immobile patients, and I have to confess I am getting a bit old for that. Lying down on the floor is the easy bit – it’s the getting up afterwards that’s the problem).

But even more, it is people skills. If you can’t relate to people – you are even more sunk. There are a number of patients who come to me because they don’t like the previous practitioner. The previous one was young (well, you can’t help that – only time will cure that problem), they are not qualified (well – they are – but they look and behave like they should still be in second grade), or more likely, he or she was rude! They used the patient’s first name without permission (old people still don’t like that in the UK), they used bad language by the patient’s standards, and they dressed sloppily. All such complaints are totally unrelated to clinical skills, but they are enough to sink a practitioner in private practice.

It probably goes back to the failure of family and the education system long before university. People should be taught “good manners” and “people skills.” They should be taught much of it in the home, and if the home is incapable of providing it, it should be taught in the earlier stages of education. Because in the market place, if there is a choice, the one who has those skills will win every time.

I have no complaints personally – it has worked out well for me. But I do feel sorry for the young people who now go through the system with a strong possibility of disillusionment and failure ahead of them – which can color the rest of their lives. All for the lack of basic human skills – the missing piece of the jigsaw.

There – that’s my rant over for now. I feel a whole lot better.