The ISSUE debate on Higher Education (Oxford Mail, September 21) made me recall a programme, many years ago, in which Arnold Weinstock, of GEC, bemoaned the fact that he could not get academically bright school leavers to join the firm to be trained as chemists and engineers.
The problem, as he saw it, was that they all wanted to go to university which meant that, by the time they left university, they were getting rather too old to start with the firm.
He further discovered that graduates thought they were worth more, whereas, according to Weinstock, they were, to him, worth less.
On the programme were some young people who were asked if they would be prepared to take a job with GEC; all answered no, claiming that it sounded like hard work and that their hope was to get into government.
In the past go-ahead firms liked to train their own researchers – there seems to be little opportunity these days.
Derrick Holt Fortnam Close Headington
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