General studies and the employer

This paper arises from a research project concerned with the place of General Studies in further education. It analyses data on the views of employers concerning the provision of such studies in technical courses and relates these to the wider conception of further education. Employers included among the primary aims of General Studies (a) to broaden a student's outlook, (b) to improve powers of communication and (c) to enhance general knowledge. A non-vocational element is tolerated by them provided it does not interfere with the inculcation of industrially useful knowledge. Although employers constitute a key pressure group within this sector of education, their formal links to General Studies staff were undeveloped.