Students may face 'nous' test

Final-year undergraduates may be expected to take a national test which demonstrates their employment potential, if embryonic plans by academics and graduate recruiters are implemented. Likened to a Mensa test for core skills and common sense, it is being dubbed the "employability" or "nous" test.

According to Jonathan Brill, an educational development specialist at Brunel University, who is designing the test in association with Minneapolis-based training company Drake Prometric, students will be set questions from five proficiency areas: computing and word processing, foreign languages, industrial knowledge, communication skills, team-working and interpersonal skills.

Multiple-choice brain-teasers will range from such geographical earth-stoppers as "which Canadian provinces border Alaska?" to complex corporate conundrums about price/earnings ratios and limited company external audits.

Mr Brill said that students at former polytechnics may be tempted by this "levelling test", which could give them an opportunity to show the employment advantages they have over students at more traditional universities.

He also expects the test will prove attractive to employers of business management graduates "because the MBA market has become so overcrowded that it is very difficult to differentiate between students", and to small and medium-sized companies which do not have the recruitment resources to run their own tests.

The two-hour test, which will be deliverable through interactive CD-Rom computer packages, is forecast to cost Pounds 50, payable by either students or employers. Successful students will get a certificate and awarding body RSA Examinations has expressed an interest in coordinating the certification.

Although the test is not expected to be run before 1997, a pilot is being prepared for June. The results will be monitored by a steering group including John Stoddart, principal of Sheffield Hallam University and chairman of the Higher Education Quality Council, Walter Greaves of Mercedes Benz (UK), and Roly Cockman of the Association of Graduate Recruiters.