Students are graduating from university without the crucial workplace skills to communicate and collaborate effectively, and the alarming deficiency is getting worse because of online study, according to higher education experts.

Professor Mary O’Kane, who is leading the federal government inquiry into the future of higher education, said employers were often satisfied with graduates’ technical abilities but were crying out for young people with strong so-called “generic skills, which go back to the sort of role of university in teaching us how to think, how to learn, how to communicate”.