Business skills, GMAT and forgetting

It seems that over the last 30 years I have read dozens of articles in which employers bemoan the lack of certain skills in apparently well educated individuals. Comments like, "They can't write letters.. presentation skills are non-existent ... why can't they do simple calculations without a calculator?" 

I trully believe it is mostly to do with forgetting. Simple as it sounds, forgetting things learned previously is a huge problem in Higher Education. When they reach the end of their GCSE and A Level route a reasonably bright student should have a pretty well developed Maths and English 'toolbox'. The problem is, most of what they have learned is only relevant in specific situations. Ask yourself how often you have had to solve a quadratic equation in your working life. Probably not often unless you work in IT or Engineering.

During university education much of what was learnt at GCSE and A Level is left behind largely unused. Even in some areas English language skills, which should develop during university years, fade into the distance as the student focuses on trying to research and reference in excess of 30,000 words of academic argument. Great for learning about deadlines and organisation but not particularly relevant if you need to communicate at all levels in a multi-layered environment. The basic number skills though are the ones to suffer most. Most graduates have forgotten huge chunks of basic times tables, can't remember how to solve simple equations or reason if adding two odds makes an even.

It is no wonder that Post Grad Business degrees require strong GMAT scores, but this doesn't address basic communication, delegation or presentation skills.

Unless Universities address the problem it falls to us in the private sector to do something about it.