Every year, thousands of students graduate from our universities, colleges and educational institutions. And, every year, we hear the same issue raised by employers, that, essentially, they are not ready for the labour market.
On the other hand, educational institutions argue that their role is not just to fill up a mould and churn out employees prepared for the industry but it goes beyond that.
Of course, when looking through their optics, both sides are correct in their arguments.
Educational institutions are not only creating the workforce of today but they’re also preparing that of tomorrow. They have a sacred duty to analyse the local needs while also seeking among the four corners of the earth those innovations that will shape our existence in the coming decades.
They must also look beyond and extend human understanding so that the pursuit of knowledge makes a tiny step forward. So these institutions look way beyond the local realities when drafting their curricula.
Employers rightly preach that charity should begin at home. They have to deal with problems today and not tomorrow. While they would love to invest in innovative solutions, they first need to deal with the day-to-day running of their operations. Cash flow constraints constantly pull them down and emerging challenges require immediate resolution, otherwise, their business will flounder.
This situation creates several paradoxes. We have educational institutions tasked with building the workforce of tomorrow but not fully managing to satisfy the needs of today. We have employers requesting employees with precise requirements equipped with a bag load of experiences but, at the same time, flexible enough to handle new challenges.
The truth is that the entry-level job is starting to disappear.
We think the secret in life is always to seek the middle ground. There have been various attempts in the past but, rather than one-off exercises, an ongoing process should be set up, fostering serious dialogue between educational institutions and employer organisations.
Where possible, and when it does not impinge on their academic freedom, educational institutions should seek alignment with industry while employers should provide initiatives linked directly to parts of the course.
Such an approach would have three direct effects.
• It would help students understand what it means to work in the industry.
• Students would understand how the skills learned during the course satisfy the requirements of their job.
• It would help students gain valuable work experience.
Our educational system seems very limited in imparting the so-called soft skills to our students
This model should not be used exclusively in higher education. It should also permeate our educational system down to secondary and, also potentially, to primary schooling.
Pupils and students need to know what the labour market can offer them from an early age. This is achieved by other countries that turn such visits not only into educational ones but also into fun outings.
Today, we expect pre-teens to start forging their path for a job they know little about. Unfortunately, their choices tend to be heavily influenced by their peers, parents or their favourite teacher rather than by an informed process that tries to identify their true calling.
The system is also somewhat rigid, giving children a set of limited choices whose combinations might be very far from what they aspire to do in the end.
Worst of all, our educational system seems very limited in imparting the so-called soft skills to our students.
Survey after survey show that these skills always feature as the most desirable among employees: the ability to communicate effectively, show empathy, be creative, solve problems and self-learn, among others.
These skills are not only valuable within a working context but even in other aspects of our lives.
We live in the information age whereby the collection, sifting, processing and dissemination of information is crucial for our success.
Of course, this does not mean that there weren’t positive changes in the past years. Initiatives such as the myJourney reform, the work conducted by the eSkills Malta Foundation to bridge the gap and many others are very commendable.
But we’re not there yet.
We need a more cohesive approach, which brings forth the much-needed long-term change.
In the end, let’s not forget that this is not about academia vs industry but more about the leading players working together to solve the shared problems which our country will face in the coming decades.
To tackle this challenge, the HSBC Malta Foundation is sponsoring The Human Capital Research Project. This is supported by the Ministry of Education, the Malta Chamber of Commerce, the Malta Business Bureau, the University of Malta and the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology.
The project aims to analyse the current and future economic environments, assessing their impact on Malta’s labour market while also highlighting the skills needed. Further details can be found on Facebook: HumanCapitalResearchProject.
Alexiei Dingli, professor of artificial intelligence, and Rose Marie Azzopardi, an economist focusing on the labour market, are the lead researchers on this three-year project.