How can it make sense to drop the graduates?

I’ve got 2 sons, both graduates. One is doing a PhD so is missing out on the challenges of getting a job, whilst the other, a graduate in Marketing in Management is on the trail for his first break. And it’s tough out there. Lots more competition than usual and for those will little practical experience getting that first break is what used to be called a significant challenge, but is now known as a “big ask”.

And it’s not helped when a company like BT announces that it is scrapping its Graduate schemes. The ripples from this statement will be great and could trigger others to do the same and the knock on effect could be that we seen the destruction of graduate schemes across the country.

At the personal level for my sons and many, many others this is serious. But for the economy in general it is possibly even more serious as graduate schemes do produce wonderful results.

Yes of course I know that Richard Branson and many other highly successful types did no go to or even finish university, but they are an exception. In the general scheme of things we need graduate trained minds to get into business and to be successful. They stand a better chance of doing this in a structured programme. Like the ones BT used to run!