Preparing graduates for life and the world of work

As universities, it is essential that in addition to preparing graduates for their careers and the world of work, we prepare them for life with the skills they need to make their way as citizens of the world. 

Opinion by Dr Muki Moeng, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Learning and Teaching, Nelson Mandela University

As universities, it is essential that in addition to preparing graduates for their careers and the world of work, we prepare them for life with the skills they need to make their way as citizens of the world. 

An essential skill is excellent communication. Graduates must converse, write and read well, and know how to read the room, network, develop relationships and negotiate. Communication skills also include showing understanding, fairness and compassion, whether as a teacher to their learners, a nurse to their patients or a lawyer to their clients.

We also understand that some of our students find the disciplinary language challenging to comprehend. Therefore, we present academic literacy modules that enable our students to grasp disciplinary knowledge. By the time they complete their degree, they are prepared to communicate confidently within and beyond their fields of study.

In the past, we assumed that these and other life skills were learned along the way, but I firmly believe we need to explicitly teach them as part of the curriculum and in active community engagement. For example, in our curriculum for our Medical School, our first years do community visits because our goal is to develop doctors who engage with the communities they serve. Another example is the student teacher, who needs to understand where their learners come from and their challenges.

Irrespective of the degree and career, we want to see our graduates displaying a disposition that speaks to who we are as a university serving society. We teach modules on subjects such as social consciousness and ethics so that we can pose the question ‘how should a Mandela University graduate behave?’. It speaks to who we are as a university and to Nelson Mandela the person.

As part of making a positive impact, we have numerous programmes for high school learners, such as ‘STEM in ACTION’, to assist students with the maths, science, literacy and computer skills they need to access university. We also have a range of services, such as psychology and law clinics, open to the public, where our students engage with and serve our communities.

We want our students and graduates to live the values of social justice and appreciation of diversity. We want them to be conscious, ethical agents of change and gender equality who contribute meaningfully to the world.

Along the educational path, we must prepare students to be critical, creative thinkers and adaptive problem-solvers. I am of the firm belief that for students to acquire these attributes, we need to create opportunities for experiential or workplace-based learning and expose them to real-life situations in the careers they are pursuing, be it industrial engineering students seeking internships in industry or law and psychology students serving in law and psychology clinics as two of the many examples.

Experiential and workplace-based learning is now deliberately designed as part of the curriculum, not as an ‘add-on’. This way, students can develop relationships with industry, professional bodies, and communities before graduation.

In addition, we invite industry and professional bodies to come and address our students and assess our curriculum. We welcome their input on whether our students are being appropriately prepared for the type of work they will be pursuing, and we implement changes if aspects they feel are not serving the purpose.

Through these interactions, graduates enter the workplace with a better idea of what is expected of them, including in-depth knowledge of their discipline and its inter- and transdisciplinary applications. During their studies, they also need to learn how to be adaptive, which is essential for the world of work, future jobs, and creating their own work.

Student entrepreneurship skills are now part of university education and vital for job creation and addressing the unemployment crisis. At Mandela University, we have the Madibaz Youth Entrepreneurship Lab, which develops entrepreneurship through co-curricular and voluntary programmes, one of which is the Student Employability and Entrepreneurship Development (SEED) programme. The university has also created a policy allowing students to operate businesses on campus.

In 2023, we established the Centre for Entrepreneurship Rapid Incubator with funding from the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA), which provides an 18-month incubation programme for students and entrepreneurs and unemployed youth and youth-owned businesses.

In conclusion, and overarching everything discussed here is our humanising and caring educational philosophy to which all our academics commit. The only way to produce graduates with the attributes mentioned is to lead by example, communicate, and engage with students in a caring, compassionate way that recognises each student as unique, reads the class well, and understands the diverse backgrounds from which students come. It’s not easy to be inclusive, but it’s essential to produce graduates from all walks of life who are well-prepared for life and enter the world of work with attributes that will serve them and society.