The Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, more commonly referred to as MCAST, is reaching out to employers to identify new areas where it could add value for students and employers in the vocational training it provides.

It was recently announced that the college is to introduce nine new courses in its efforts to cater to the different abilities and inclinations of students aiming for a vocational career. These courses will hopefully help bridge the skills gap in the local labour market.

As Education Minister Clifton Grima rightly said we should not distinguish between academic and applied learning but only focus on students reaching their full potential.

Vocational education is a complex field attempting to cater for the diverse needs of individuals of a wide range of inclinations and capabilities. It is also grappling with a number of emerging challenges, such as demographic change, the ongoing digitalisation of the world of work, the trend towards higher level school-leaving qualifications and an increasingly heterogenous group of learners.

While MCAST enjoys a quasi-monopoly in providing formal vocational training in Malta, some firms provide specific training for their employees in a wide variety of areas, such as bookkeeping, catering, childcare, construction, media production and so on.

It is worrying, however, that there has reportedly been poor employer engagement in fashioning training provisions for MCAST students. This lack of interest by many employers leads to a fragmented delivery system, with some students getting very high-quality vocational education but too many getting sub-standard training.

But the main challenge is that most parents still hold academic qualifications in higher esteem than vocational credentials. If vocational education is seen as inferior, it will receive less attention from policymakers.

Strains in the existing vocational education systems include the lack of workplace training places and trainers. Some employers are reluctant to recruit young people unless they are “job-ready”, as hiring inexperienced people can be expensive.

Today, people entering the labour market need to demonstrate immediate job skills but they also need the cognitive competencies to handle different jobs and to sustain their learning. Many skill requirements are volatile and driven by rapid technological change while technological advances have increased the demand for higher-level technical skills, including at the tertiary level.

High-skilled, blue-collar occupations include traditional apprenticeship trades such as plumbing and electrics.

But most countries are also developing vocational programmes in new technical white-collar occupations, including healthcare and computing. It makes little sense to refer to vocational education as a single ‘system’. Labour market structures and cultural attitudes like occupational aspirations demand that flexibility and choice be embedded in training young people for the workplace.

For MCAST and other smaller vocational training providers to fulfil their mission, they need to provide the right mix of skills for the labour market.

This must be combined with reform in career guidance to deliver practical advice for all students at the end of the mandatory phase of their education.

Teachers and trainers must be well prepared with industry experience, as this is the best way of ensuring that real-world workplace challenges are understood. Teachers and lecturers should be trained and retrained constantly in line with global best practices.

Every student needs educational input which is not directly tied to their career. Nobody knows that better than parents.

So, policymakers also need to reach out to students’ parents to address their concerns about vocational education. The right synergy between students, their parents, policymakers, educators and employers would bring about and integrate the educational essentials of vocational training that fulfils modern-day needs.