Saturday, April 6, 2013

The Great Mismatch: Skills Shortages are Getting Worse…Youth Unemployment Reaches Record Highs –the Global Perspective.

By Clive Siachiyako
In parts of Europe and the Middle East more than a quarter of 15- to 24-year-olds do not have a job. Altogether, 75million of the world’s young people are unemployed. Twice that number (about 150million) is underemployed. This does not only represent a huge loss of productive capacity (as people in the prime of life are turned into dependents); but it is also a potential source of social disruption and a daily source of individual angst.

At the same time, companies complain that they cannot get hold of the right people. More than a third of employers worldwide had trouble filling jobs, Economist.com. Skills shortages are pressing not just in elite areas such as engineering but also in mid-level ones such as office administration.

What is going on? And what can we do about it? It is argued that a big part of the problem is that educators and employers operate in parallel universes – and that a big part of the solution lies in bringing these two universes together i.e. educators to step into employers’ shoes, employers to step into educators’ and students to move between the two.

The best way to do this is to revamp vocational education, which in many parts of the world has been treated as the ‘ginger stepchild’ of the education system i.e. as by-the-way training system. Governments are pouring money into universities, and universities are competing in singing their own praises. As a result, parents and their offspring have shunned vocational schools. Many students chose to go to academic schools, yet vocational schools give them more chance of finding work, according to the Economist.com findings.

In this regard, in some far-sighted countries, schools and firms are seriously reinventing in vocational education, Economist.com argues in its research findings. South Korea for instance has created a network of vocational schools – called “meister” schools, copied from German for “master craftsman” to reduce the country’s shortage of machine operators and plumbers. It also referred to them as “young meisters” in order to counteract the country’s obsession with academic glories (NOTE: South Korea has one of the world’s highest university-enrolment rates). The government paid students’ room and boarding as well as their tuition fees.

Technical schools are building exact replicas of workplaces in order to make it easier to cross the theoretical-practical divide. For example, TAFE Challenger Institute of Technology in Australia has a fully functioning replica of a gas-processing plant (minus the gas) in its workshops. Furthermore, talent-starved companies are striking deals with governments to mix practical and academic education. In Egypt; Americana Group, a food and restaurant company has a programme that allows students to spend to half their time working for Americana and half their time in college.

Policymakers are also enjoying some success in using vocational education to reach underprivileged groups. South Africa’s Go for Gold, a partnership between the Western Cape Education Department and the NMC Construction Group, identifies promising schoolchildren for additional instruction and guarantees them a year’s paid work experience and a chance at a university scholarship. India’s Institute for Literacy Education and Vocational Training sends people to villages to speak to families about the opportunities on offer with blue-chip companies such as Taj Hotels and Larsen and Toubro.

It is easy to be skeptical about these attempts to bridge the gap between education and employment. Academic drift is one of the most powerful forces in educational life. Look at the way Britain’s technical schools were allowed to wither and its polytechnics converted into universities. This created practical skills gap in the country due to lack of practicability of university education in comparison to vocational training, states the economist.com report.

Nevertheless there are reasons for optimism. For one, technology is greatly reducing the cost of vocational education, which has always been one of the most important reasons for its slow spread. “Serious games” can provide young people with a chance to gain hands-on experience, albeit of the virtual kind, at minimum cost. Miami Dade College, America’s largest community college, has introduced a system that sends automatic alerts to faculty advisers whenever one of their charges trips a warning wire, such as falling grades. These are creative products of artisans and craftsmen who train by doing, a drift from academic learning dominant in universities.

More and more private-sector institutions are also coming up with ideas to improve vocational training. For instance, China Vocational Training Holdings specialises in matching students with jobs in the Chinese car industry by keeping masses of data on both students and companies. Mozilla, the creator of the Firefox web browser, has created an “open badges initiative” that allows people to get recognition for programming skills. IL & FS Skills, an Indian training company, gives students a guarantee of a job if they finish its courses. This array of initiatives is a motivator to vocational learners to think outside the box and use their intellect and hands-on skills to create opportunities for themselves. Learners graduate with a mentality to create, to invent, and find/provide solutions to seemingly challenging things in their communities.

Better vocational education alone is hardly a panacea (cure-all) for the global jobs crisis.  Millions of young people will be condemned to unemployment so long as demand remains slack and growth sluggish. But it can at least help to deal with an absurd mismatch that has saddled the world not just with a shortage of jobs but a shortage of skills as well, adds the economist.com.

The global perspective on vocational training shows that the solution to youth unemployment can be lessened by increasing technical and vocation training windows which expose learners to real world situations. It entails a change from the traditional way of guiding youths into career pathways inclined towards theory. Robert Frost (author of the Book: Rich Dad, Poor Dad) argues that youths spend years in an old-fashioned educational system, studying subjects they will never use and preparing for a world that no longer exists. He adds, “Today, the most dangerous advice you can give a child is ‘go to school, get good grades and look for a safe-secure job in government, and enjoy your pension entitlements forever.’ That is old advice, and it's bad advice. If you could see what is happening in the labour market you would be concerned.”

Simply telling a youth “get a good education,” is not enough. Youths in this era need an education system which prepares them for the world they will face upon graduation. Each youth needs more education focused on using their brains and hands to earn a living. They need a different education from the one of the 60s. And they need to know the rules; they need different sets of rules anchored on appropriate vocational training of their time.

Preparing and training youths for the 21st century industry requires combined inputs of government, the industry and private sector. Government needs to put in place appropriate policy frameworks and implementation systems for relevant vocational training. Policy frameworks; (i) define funding strategies for vocational training and implementation strategies are made, (ii) training pathways designed and modes of implementing them devised (to increase access to vocational training), and (iii) industry interaction (for hands-on experience to learners) spelled out and modes of carrying them out well defined, as well as other initiatives to ensure that vocational graduates are properly nurtured for the modern labour market.

In addition, the industry needs to create a haven for nurturing vocational training in different sectors of the economy. The industry detects skills needs as soon as they arise, thus can signal them to the trainers and help learners acquire such competences through industrial attachments and other industry interaction modes strategically made to bridge skills lapses in most young graduates.

The industry can also devise funding strategies towards sectoral skills.  Each sector needs certain skills to increase its productivity. Each industry needs a certain quantum of human capital to achieve projected growth targets. Training right numbers of skilled, energetic and relevant personnel for each industry is a costly undertaking. Shared input in training such a pool of human capital is indispensable. Training the right clusters of skilled youths with the right calibre requires government, sectoral and industry input for attainment of collective goals (of having empowered youths –government goals; and having relevant, innovative and dedicated personnel on the job for increased productivity –goal of the industry.)

The role of the parent becomes very paramount in developing such a calibre of vocational graduates. Parents influence career choices of their children and who they end being in their lives. Homes are largest investment and greatest havens of creating great minds and stunted-dependent minds. Therefore, a new approach to career guidance is unavoidable in this era, especially with the failed old education system mainly focused on theory, which has been the major characteristic feature of mostly universities.

It is very risky today to simply say to a child, “study hard and look for a job.” A child today needs a more sophisticated education, and the current system is not delivering the goods. Vocational training has proved to be one of the tools in developing a new crop of youths who innovate, work hard, who use their intellect and hands to create value, who are financially competent, self-reliant and look-out for “how they can create employment (or how to come out of the ‘employed status’ when they still have the strength to create wealth for themselves), and not who can employ them until they retire.’

Parents can help the world have a class of youths whose mind is not fine-tuned towards "entitlement” mentality (i.e. pension, health policy, etc.). Things parents put in the ‘brain chips’ of their children has a huge impact on who they become in their lives. Career ‘worlds’ parents create in the minds of the children often determine the career they pursue. Unfortunately, the two (parents and today’s children) are living in very different times. In the 60s getting good grades at school, going to university and looking for a secure job in government, and waiting for entitlements made sense; but it is not workable anymore. Youths should be allowed to explore their inner-self to pursue careers that enable them fit in the world of today, not the non-existing world of the old age.

Gone are the days too when industry waited for government to training human resource for them. Industry currently require sophisticated and focused graduates who are ready to get ‘dirty’ (use their practical skills and intellect) to contribute towards personal and national development. Combined input of the industry, government and parents in sharping today’s pool of human capital can achieve a lot in addressing some of the youth unemployment challenges.