The Spanish university loses international prestige due to its disconnection from employment

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Spanish universities do not excel outside our borders and each year present worse results. Campuses languish because they have been dragging insufficient funding for a long time, with inflexible regulations and little connection to the reality of the labor market, which leads to unemployment or underqualified jobs for tens of thousands of young people with higher degrees.

If last week it was the rectors who admitted that the university system was "close to collapse", now two rankings are again alerting Spain. The one from the British consulting firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) points out that only two campuses - the University of Barcelona and the Autonomous University of Madrid - are, by the way, among the 200 best in the world. Meanwhile, the U-Multirank , powered by the CE, only places the Pompeu Fabra in 41st place out of 100.

The QS, one of the three most prestigious classifications, places 26 Spanish universities on a list of 1,000. But 18 of these 26 have lost positions this year, says Ben Sowter , vice president of QS. This trend does not occur in the best campuses in the world, which remain stable. Why in Spain yes?

Sowter responds that there has been a worsening in academic reputation and impact of research (what counts most in this ranking), ratio of students per teacher and internationalization. But what has worried them most this time is the indicator that analyzes the prestige of universities and their graduates among employers. That's where 24 of the 26 get worse. They go down, on average, 68 positions.

"The building is poorly constructed," explains Antonio Abril , president of the Conference of Social Councils of Spanish Universities . "On the one hand, we have an employability problem, with Spain as the second country in the EU with the highest percentage of unemployed university graduates and the first in underemployment."

Abril, who is the voice of companies on campus, recalls that 37% of young Spaniards work in positions below their qualification. «We pour 200,000 graduates into the labor market every year and 90,000 fail to work in an activity appropriate to their degree. This is extremely serious, and adds to the fact that companies complain about the lack of adaptation of the degrees to their needs. There are many unemployed university students and employers cannot find the professionals they are looking for. Furthermore, the Spanish productive fabric is not capable of absorbing the generous number of graduates that we produce. If we mix all of that up, it gives us a really unfortunate situation and one that should worry us, "he stresses.

This "imbalance" described by Abril could be mitigated by several measures, according to Sowter: «It would be necessary to work with employers to offer students more internships during their career, and more focused on stays abroad; consult more with companies about missing skills, and provide study plans that help cultivate those skills. ”

Minister Manuel Castells had prepared a legal reform with degrees on demand and more prominence from companies, in tune with the universities of the United States (which hold the top positions in this ranking), but the unions have stopped a draft that was not seen either with good eyes in Podemos .

"Well-functioning universities have made efforts to insert project-based experiences and teamwork into their curricula," says Sowter, who recommends that Spanish campuses go towards learning "as collaborative as possible", deepening skills of "communication" and "critical thinking" and focus on reinforcing the offer of "computer programming" and "data analysis".

Huberto Marraud , vice-rector for Strategic Projects at the Autonomous University of Madrid, maintains that, among the keys to his success, he is focusing on research and trying to bring the world of work closer to the university. “The companies come to visit us and explain to the students the available offers and the type of work they do and need. And we have a wide range of internships in all degrees, "he says.

There are things, yes, in which Spain is not so bad. The University of Barcelona and the Complutense are among the top 100 in academic reputation, while the Pompeu Fabra shines in research and Navarra "produces the best Spanish graduates", according to Sowter.

Has the interruption of the classroom classes influenced by the coronavirus in the loss of positions? "We haven't measured it," says Sowter. "In any case, campuses like IE University have shown a good record in online learning and are well positioned to deal with this crisis."

Improve research and internationalization

In the parameter of ratio of students per teacher, both the University of Barcelona and the Autonomous University of Madrid worsened. "The number of students has increased but not the number of teachers, for budgetary reasons," admits Huberto Marraud . This indicator, according to QS, is associated with personalized attention to the student that improves the quality of teaching.

However, the indicators that count the most are the reputation among other academics -where the large universities in the main cities always come out better- and the impact of the research measured through the most cited publications.

Sowter says that "the main weakness" in Spain is "less research impact per researcher, relative to its global peers". The QS places Spanish universities in position 640, on average, in this parameter.

“Nor do they have a large number of academics from around the world. We have seen that some of the countries that have performed well in our ranking, such as Singapore, have made concerted efforts to attract the best teachers from countries around the world, "adds the analyst.

And he suggests "creating partnerships with universities around the world to improve the impact of research", "publishing research in English journals whenever possible", "creating strategies to disseminate research worldwide" and "offering incentives to Talented teachers to carry out research at or in collaboration with Spanish universities ».

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