The truth is that employers have been complaining about M.B.A. writing skills for more than ten years now. And not just M.B.As.
But the problem is not that writing and communication skills are “difficult skills to teach,” as the article suggests. I think this kind of claim comes from a panacea view of writing instruction: students take a writing class, so they learn how to write. Writing instruction doesn’t usually work that way. Developing writing ability is a matter of cognitive development, not just a matter of taking in information, so it takes time to develop. If a program wants to develop students’ writing skills, students need to be made to read and write and to receive writing instruction in most of their classes, not just their English classes. The problem is that business and other programs don’t invest in practices that develop communication skills; e.g., high reading and writing requirements.
James Rovira 