ϟ • FEATURES
Great Expectations By Wilbur Townsend and Nick Cross
Why you should be angry at the Government for subsidising your degree
“We are looking for a talented, ambitious and focused intern for up to 6 months. This is a full-time, unpaid position.” So read Greenpeace New Zealand’s advertisement on Careerhub. The idea of an unpaid full-time internship— working 40 hours a week and being paid nothing—should be bizarre. However, the recent recession has spawned new absurdities in the job market, as more and more overqualified graduates compete against each other for fewer and fewer jobs. While the recession has exacerbated the job crisis, the basic problem— that, every year, university degrees are worth less than they were the previous year—has been developing for a long time. Jobs which once required only undergraduate study now require Honours, BA-grads are stranded in hospitality, and school-leavers struggle to find work outside a supermarket. This phenomenon—known as ‘degree inflation’—is forcing young people into ever-increasing amounts of study, with dismal job prospects even for those who have
completed degrees. While tragic, it has not been inevitable. Rather, it is the necessary result of an unnecessary Government policy. In 1956, Norman Shaw left high school and got a job with the Commercial Bank of Australia. Despite his only formal qualification being his School Certificate, he worked with the bank for a number of years, first as a postage clerk, and then later on as a teller. He went on to have a successful career in sales and marketing, working with a number of textile firms before eventually ending up as a marketing executive with Nylex Ltd., a vinyl wholesaler. This is a position that would now require three or more years of university study, but back then it was possible to work into these positions from the bottom up. When we talked to Norman last week, he told us that he’d never regretted foregoing university study. “You might be the brightest bastard in the world, but an ability to learn and an ability to do a thing are
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