The Government seeks “innovation” to secure the country’s economic future, but are they looking in the wrong place?

Surprise! According to recent research published in the international OECD survey, arts graduates are as likely as graduates in engineering and computing to hold a commercial and industrial sector job in product innovation. But perhaps most surprising is that arts students are statistically more likely to work in these types of roles than graduates in sciences and maths, business, health, social sciences, agriculture, architecture, humanities or education, with law graduates being the least successful. That is perhaps unexpected, given lawyers’ reputation for inventiveness, but there’s a flash of irony here, given the push for “innovation” from our lawyer-heavy Federal Parliament.

“Innovation” has become one of the Government’s favourite buzzwords. It’s a catch-all title for 21st-century business minds, proffering bold new ideas and recession busting concepts to counter the economic backslide that has ebbed and flowed about the globe since 2007. If dusty, old school economics pushed the world into the GFC, then “innovation” is the blue-sky thinking intended to push it out.

Sadly the Government’s zeal for outside-of-the-box thinking isn’t reflected in its education strategy. As has been widely reported, Australia’s international...