Evening Standard (London): Brewing, gambling or beauty? Take a vocation

Degrees in nonacademic subjects are still a cause for sniggering and raised eyebrows, but in a servicebased economy they may be a good choice, writes Nick Angel

ONCE upon a time Mickey Mouse was just a cartoon character. Today, his name is a term of abuse - used to characterise a higher education system that, say the critics, has dumbed down to the point where a degree is no longer worth the paper it is written on.

And one must admit that it isn't hard to see why some degrees might raise an eyebrow. Courses listed in the 2005 Ucas handbook include honours degrees in turf grass science, surf science and technology and adventure tourism. What next?

A degree in brewing? As it happens, Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh offers a four-year course in just this subject.

There is even a professor of brewing.

Criticism of unusual degrees is not new - even English was once viewed as suspect. But amid all the wailing and lampooning, few pause to consider whether there might be some other reason for the rise of the "innovative vocational degree" - the term preferred by universities that offer them - than a simple desire to infuriate newspaper columnists.

Certainly, few take the trouble to consider the possibility that they might even be worthwhile.

"It's incredibly frustrating for us," says Ian Mitchell, lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire whose special-effects course has, inevitably, been singled out for a pummelling in the press - most recently from the media psychiatrist Anthony Clare, who used his newspaper column to urge parents not to let their children do the course. "The problem is perception: people who are against [vocational degrees] don't know enough about them," says Mitchell.

The perception is that these are not degrees at all, but souped- up polytechnic courses with no substance - something that Mitchell vehemently rejects, insisting his degree "is an education, and not just a training".

The course teaches students how to design everything from architectural models to computer-aided design, and has theoretical as well as practical elements, with third-year students having to write a 6,000-word essay.

"It's important that people, having done a degree, recognise the value of education and continuing to learn," he says. "Unless you've been involved in continuing education, perhaps you don't value the experience of learning. By doing a degree people are well placed to recognise that they will continue learning throughout their lives."

Courses that sound as though they are a doddle usually incorporate more "respectable" fields, but give them a vocational slant. For example, London's University of Arts BSc in beauty science is, according to course tutor Anne Emblem, primarily a chemistry degree tailored for those who want to develop cosmetic beauty products.

Meanwhile, Nottingham Trent's David Forrest, professor of gambling studies, insists that this is primarily an economics degree. "Students take the same core degree as economics," he says, "but they also take courses studying gambling. There's an emphasis on the economics of gambling, but public policy issues are looked at as well."

Even if we accept that there is intellectual substance to such courses, do you actually need a university degree for, say, jobs in leisure and tourism?

Can't you just learn on the job, as people have done for years? It is an argument with which John Lord, course director of events management at the University of Wales, Cardiff, is familiar, but rejects. He spent 30 years as manager at Wembley Stadium, and found himself frustrated by the lack of trained personnel. There was always a great dearth of people who had any knowledge of the business," he says.

"Employers want someone who can join the company and hit the ground running."

For Geoff Palmer, Heriot-Watt's professor of brewing, a degree programme geared towards industry is to everyone's advantage. "The course has provided personnel that would not otherwise be there," he says. "And also, our industry has a place to ring if they have a problem."

Indeed, he argues that the existence of his course - the degree in brewing focuses on the science behind creating alcohol, rather than its consumption - not only feeds a large and prosperous industry with personnel, its is one of the reasons that the industry is flourishing in the first place. He points to the fact that all the major breweries are established in the UK.

But doesn't specialising in one narrow field limit a graduate's career options to one small area of expertise? Palmer cites the brewing and distilling graduate who went on to become a merchant banker, and such anecdotal evidence is supported by a recent survey conducted by Universities UK, which suggests that, in the long term, employers are more interested in the fact that you have a degree, rather than what it is in or where it was taken.

FOR Michael Driscoll, vicechancellor of Middlesex University and chairman of the Coalition of Modern Universities - the group that represents post-1992 universities - the rise of nontraditional vocational degrees is a simple matter of market forces.

"What these degrees are is a response to market need - a need expressed by employers, and by the very astute and wise choices that students make in the courses they follow."

Driscoll points out that the British economy is no longer industrial, but service-based - and it is this that explains the rise of some of the more defiantly nonacademicsounding fields, such as leisure tourism and sports studies.

Such a market-based educational philosophy disturbs traditionalists.

But Driscoll thinks there is a very simple explanation for the relentless criticism of vocational degrees.

"We're a very snobby society," he says. "There's an assumption that anything taught in ancient universities must be okay and anything that emerges in innovative universities responding to market need has a tinge of trade about it, a tinge of the back door."

Nonetheless, as students become consumers - shopping around for a degree that will serve them best in the labour market - vocational degrees are increasingly seen as the route to lucrative employment. After all the brickbats chucked his way, it looks as though Mickey could have the last laugh.