Preparing school leavers for college

Sir, – By now we have become accustomed to employers complaining that our universities don’t prepare graduates for the workplace.

Now academics are complaining that the Leaving Cert doesn’t prepare school-leavers for university (Home News, August 8th). But surely it is the job of employers to train new graduates and surely it is the job of the universities to teach those skills that define what university education actually is?

In any event, I look forward to the inevitable articles about how the new Junior Cycle doesn’t prepare pupils for the Leaving Cert or how primary school doesn’t prepare pupils for the Junior Cycle. And on and on it could go. It sounds like we all need a bit of clarity around what exactly our obligations are. – Yours, etc,

GREG FOLEY,

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Associate Professor,

Bioprocess Engineering

School of Biotechnology,

DCU, Dublin 9.

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