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  3. 　　Some people suggest that universities should consider offering more vocational

　　Some people suggest that universities should consider offering more vocational

游客2023-11-24  16
问题 　　Some people suggest that universities should consider offering more vocational courses to prepare graduates for work. However, others disagree, arguing that the purpose of universities is to open up students’ mind, not to train them. Should there be more vocational courses in colleges? The following are opinions from two sides. Read the excerpts carefully and write your response in NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should:
　　1.   summarize briefly the opinions from both sides, and then
　　2.   give your comment.
　　Parents
　　Barry: My son started a degree course at the local university, but because of his dyslexia he eventually graduated with an HND, effectively the practical part of the degree. He currently works in the construction industry and earns much more than several of his co-students who obtained degrees in less necessary disciplines.
　　My comments are not to undermine the value of a good degree. I worked with many degree holders who were very good at their work. It is simply to point out to us that the world needs relevant skills. Lord Digby Jones points out the danger of unfocused degrees, and the simple fact that there are more skills in the world than those obtained from a university.
　　Philips: Yes, they should. I see many college graduates could not find a job. Though they have some fancy college degrees, they don’t have the vocational skills that are required to do a certain job. After all, many courses have a vocational element, eg: medicine, teaching, vets etc. So why not others? To an extent though, we will have to change snobbish attitudes. Some degrees such as History and English Literature are considered good but degrees such as Golf Management and Computer Games Design are considered bad. This would encourage schools to provide students with advise on vocational courses, rather than suggesting them to take a course that looks good on the university entry statistics.
　　Jacob: There should be many more vocational courses, but they shouldn’t be at universities. The conventional university approach is not suitable for vocational training. You end up with an institution which combines the weaknesses of both universities and vocational training colleges, and has the strengths of neither.
　　University faculty
　　Mr. Anderson: Universities should be offering academic courses, training people to think logically and coherently, and teaching research skills. Vocational courses are the domain of technical colleges.
　　Rachel: Vocational training is better done by employers or specialised colleges, because by its nature it is often very specialised. The universities can contribute most effectively by teaching knowledge of general applicability such as mathematics, languages and science. This was the traditional approach of universities, with exceptions in the cases of law and medicine, which tend to operate as separate schools anyway, with a lot of on-the-job training. Back in the early 1980s, Keith Joseph, as Mrs. Thatcher’s education secretary of the state, forced the universities to move in the direction that Digby Jones is advocating. That is to offer more vocational courses. This distracted universities from their special role in scholarship and research. It may not be a coincidence that the decline of the UK from the leading position it previously had in the traditional fields accelerated from that time on. I suggest that we should let the universities revert to their traditional role, and then set up training colleges, or whatever, for the specialised skills required by industry.
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答案 　　                              Should There Be More Vocational Courses in Universities?
　　With the Chinese government’s objective to reach a high level of university attendance, there’s a school of thought saying that China is now educating too many young people just for a university degree and that these youngsters and the job market would be better served by much more focus on vocational courses during their college education. A heated discussion has arisen as to whether universities should offer more vocational courses.
　　There are quite a number of people agreeing with the idea. They argue that the society is suffering from an odd phenomenon, that is, on the one hand a large number of college graduates fail to find a position in the job market, while on the other hand many employers complain about a severe lack of skilled workers. Therefore, universities should undertake the responsibility and offer more vocational courses to equip students with certain vocational skills. On the flip side, a lot of other people hold different views, maintaining that colleges can be made best use of when they teach knowledge of general applicability. It would be more sensible for specialized vocational schools to offer them vocational courses than colleges.
　　Balancing the two sides of the argument, I tend to agree with the former opinion. To begin with, employers are increasingly requesting that a greater element of vocational training be introduced alongside academic studies, to which many universities should start responding. One example is vocational training to medical students to prepare them more thoroughly for responsibilities like dealing with patients or managing staff. A combination of the two is more and more urgent for universities in order to produce new workers with a more rounded skill set who are better prepared for all of the demands of the jobs. Secondly, the most important lesson of all is that young people need to get a better understanding of the variety of options available to them and should shake off any preconceptions that vocational training can only lead them to a second-class career. On the contrary, it can lead to valuable, lucrative and fulfilling professions.
　　In short, I think it’s clear that vocational training is no longer an optional part of the university degree. Rather, it is filling a gap which college education is not effectively narrowing when it comes to equipping young people with practical skills for the workplace.
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