Thandi is the head girl of one of Johannesburg’s most prestigious private schools. She loves English, history and politics and wants to become a lawyer. Almost certainly she will become a leader of the next generation. Many people are advising her to take a Bachelor of Commerce (B Comm) degree rather than a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree because they imagine that this will improve her future job prospects. Thandi has little interest in economics or business science. What should she do?
Thandi’s is a dilemma that faces countless school-leavers and their parents. In an uncertain employment market the BA degree looks risky. Information technology, communications and business courses appear to promise immediate employment with high salaries. But trends abroad, and opinion at higher levels of management here in South Africa, suggest that top graduates in the humanities are more likely to succeed.
The employability of English graduates recently came under scrutiny at a conference of the Association of University English Teachers of Southern Africa. Speakers representing corporate business, the legal and accounting professions, management training and career counselling, were invited to present their perspectives. There was general agreement that the humanities should be marketed more aggressively, but the issues are complex.
It is fairly easy to see why English graduates are in demand in the business sector. They have been trained, under rigorous conditions, to think logically and independently. They can write intelligible English. Years of reading complex works of literature and coming to terms with them enable them to assimilate large amounts of information rapidly. Anyone who has been in management knows that these qualities are in short supply. Corporations now spend millions offering in-house courses in report-writing, presentation, communication and the like. To employ graduates with superior language skills makes sense.
In a fast-changing economic and social environment, leaders require imagination, lateral thinking and historical perspective. A literature student has entered into many worlds, explored countless predicaments, and analysed the relationships of a host of characters and communities. He or she will also have a sense of the resources of the English language to help us think beyond the immediate situation.
South Africa has been slow to recognise the risks attached to relying on technical business and commercial training; education policy at national and local level lays stress on technology and know-how. Outcomes-based education values what you can do rather than what you know or what insight you might have. More advanced societies place a much higher premium on the liberal arts and a high quality general education. In Europe and North America most leaders in the professions, government and corporate business are expected to have a first degree in the humanities or social sciences. It has also been shown that the more sophisticated the economy is, the lower the rate of home ownership, because education is a better investment than a mortgage bond.
Can South Africa afford the luxury of expecting a high level of general education? Can parents afford the money, and can students afford the time, to complete a general, formative first degree before going on to a more career-oriented training? Can they afford not to? The weakness of our secondary education system means that only a very small proportion of school leavers is adequately prepared for life in a developed economy.
There are signs that the climate is changing. In 2000 the Minister of Education, Kadar Asmal, initiated a series of high-profile public lectures on the role of the humanities in our society. Many corporations now advise prospective employees to pursue the university courses of their own choice, and learn about the business on the job. It is clearly much more efficient for companies to leave general education to the universities and to provide training for specific needs themselves. Students will also do better at the subjects they love, rather than those they have been obliged to take in the hope that this will ensure them a job.
Many academics, however, are uneasy about emphasising English for the world of work. Perhaps the most important contribution that literary and cultural studies can make to the business and professional world is to develop an uncompromising critical mind. Not only does an English graduate have fresh ideas and sophisticated powers of expression, he or she has come to understand that things do not have to be as they are. Many practices in the global economy need to be reformed; many are worn out and need to be renewed; many are conventional and need to be questioned. Managers, it is said, know how to do things right; leaders know the right things to do.
Victor Houliston is a professor of English at the University of the Witwatersrand
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, September 2001.