LINKING EDUCATION SYSTEMS WITH LABOUR MARKET THE WORLD OF WORK

EDUCATION WORLD OF WORK

1. Qualifying function

2. Status-distributive function

STRATEGIC PLAN (2012 – 2017)

A distinctive UWI graduate should demonstrate that he/she is:

• a critical and creative thinker • an effective communicator with

good interpersonal skills • IT-skilled and information literate • innovative and entrepreneurial • globally aware and well grounded

in his/her regional identity • socially, culturally and

environmentally responsible • guided by strong ethical values

Limits of Linkages between Education and Employment

1. Imperfections in identifying job requirements:

Employers tend to be uncertain as far as job requirements are concerned, and

scientific approaches of job task analysis often turn out not to be very useful for

educational approaches.

2. Occupational dynamics: The employment is very dynamic in terms of changes

of job tasks within given occupations, and most persons have to expect

occupational mobility in terms of changing employers or occupations over their

life courses. This challenges the view that youth might be best served by getting

well prepared for a very specific bundle of job tasks.

3. Indeterminate work tasks for highly-qualified work force: The higher the

educational level required for a certain occupational area and thus the higher the

investments for education for the learners or for the society, the more difficult it is

to identify the competencies needed, for the relationships between knowledge

and job tasks are too complex to be validly analyzed. Moreover, the individual is

not expected merely to take over anticipated tasks but also to question the existing

rules, to contribute to innovation, and to cope with indeterminate work tasks

(Teichler 1992).

4. Planning gap: There is an unavoidable time-gap between the identification of

new job assignments and the provision of respective competencies on the part of

school leavers and graduates, because several years are needed for the revision

of curricula, their implementation, and the actual “production” of graduates

according to the changed curriculum.

5. Generalists’ versus specialists’ paradigms: Views vary substantially among

experts regarding the extent to which education should be general or specialised

according to areas of knowledge or occupations in order to serve best the

preparation for employment and work.

6. Provision of foundation versus job-preparatory function of education:

Similarly, views tend to vary as regards the extent to which education prepares for

future work tasks or only lays the foundation and leaves the direct preparation to

the initial training of employees.

7. Emphasis on pre-career education versus recurrent education: Finally, views

differ in the extent to which the growing role of lifelong learning might reduce

the need of pre-career education and training. This is linked to divergent views,

among others, on the change of learning abilities over the life-course, on job

requirements in different stages of the career, and on the economic and social

conditions for lifelong learning (cf. Tuijnman and Schuller 1999).

8. Influence of other factors: Also, in addition to education, many other factors

are at work in determining the professional success of individuals, e.g. socio-

biographic background, genetically determined abilities, socio-economic factors

surrounding the role of credentials, processes of transfer from education to

employment.

Research Needs• Development of more suitable notions of “match” between

higher education and the world of work and, correspondingly, more appropriate notions of professional “success”

• Improved measures of job requirements and of competences are needed.

• More convincing strategies have to be found to measure the extents and the ways higher education “matter” for employment and work.