Any overpopulated country with few natural resources faces formidable challenges to optimise the output of its people. In the last few years, the Maltese economy has grown rapidly but this was mainly thanks to the almost unrestricted importation of unskilled, semi-skilled and specialist workers from all corners of the world.
The new national employment policy takes a critical look at this model used over the last few years. It proposes changes needed to make the dynamics of Malta’s labour market more sustainable.
In fact, it was most refreshing last week to hear Finance Minister Clyde Caruana – who will be under enormous scrutiny today as he presents his first national budget – say that we need to focus on upskilling workers rather than buzzwords like “blockchain”. This must be music to the ears of many who have argued, including in this column, that our economic model and educational system need urgent reform to improve their output.
The future of work in Malta will always depend on optimising our educational system’s output so that those leaving school or tertiary education have in-demand skills that would guarantee them a job that does justice to their qualifications.
The reality today is that too many young people are leaving secondary education with few or no skills. This makes them vulnerable to exploitation. It also destroys their bargaining power with employers, who could import cheap labour at a fraction of the wage that local low-skilled workers would accept.
At last, a senior government minister has acknowledged that the labour market policies of the previous few years need to be revamped. This, however, is easier said than done. One weakness in this new national employment policy is that it does not refer to any other plan to show how more of our workers are going to gain the skills needed to secure better-paying jobs.
The education sector continues to lack a viable vision of how to prepare more young people for the world of work. There has not been any shortage of suggestions for a quick fix of our underperforming education system, including extending compulsory education to 18 years, paying teachers more and reintroducing trade schools. All these could help but, on their own, they remain untested tactics and no substitute for a well-thought-out strategy for education reform.
There is a risk that various lobby groups with an interest in education will ask for more money to be spent on particular elements involved in the public education function. These could include building new schools, recruiting more teachers, giving bigger budgets to the University of Malta and MCAST, giving students more electronic devices and raising the stipends of post-secondary students.
Malta, in relative terms, spends more than the EU average on public education. So the solution is not to spend more but to spend better. Aside from political governance, education is the other national issue which most demands that the country engages in a thorough soul-searching exercise. Some uncomfortable questions need to be asked.
Why do children from socially distressed families fail more frequently in their education years? What do these families need in order to ensure that their children acquire the skills necessary to break the vicious circle of poverty? Is the egalitarian stipend system encouraging students to choose suitable courses that will enhance their employment prospects? Are we selecting suitable graduates to be educators and are we holding them accountable for their results in class?
A national employment policy will only succeed if such questions and more are addressed honestly and corrections are made to the way we prepare young people for the workplace.