Linking education with employability

Our education system is churning out millions of students who are spending 16 to 18 years in schools and universities and ending up being poorly educated and trained. And much more damagingly, being educated in ways and habits that make it difficult for them to change and become better learners which makes them singularly unsuitable for desired employment.

If we observe closely, we will find two contrasting views on the employment scenario in this country. The employers cry hoarse about the non-availability of talent in the market, and we hear about a huge number of youth who are unable to find a well-paid job several years after completing their degrees.

With the ever-increasing population, there can hardly be an argument regarding the purpose in Bangladesh. There is no doubt that good citizenship, personal growth, and developing solid value systems are vitally important. Yet it will be about employability in this country for the most part. Of course, philosophers and thinkers are important for any society, but they too need to be employed like the wage labourers and the talented and the less able. A whole generation is enrolled in schools waiting for teachers to show up in classrooms and do the job they were hired to do. Researchers wonder how they will make their meagre grants deliver a global impact, while students in higher education are wondering whether their degrees earned in Bangladeshi universities are worth much after all.

There are shortages everywhere — teachers, researchers, laboratories. However, while the investment in classrooms and schools is great, it is time to release learning from the classrooms only. Learning should go to the student and must extend way beyond the walls of a classroom. There should be efforts towards building open libraries, letting village school buildings become community learning centres after school time with open access to solar-powered connected computers. Creativity and research attitudes must be encouraged from the very beginning. Unfortunately, our sector is bound by regulations from nursery to higher. Capacity is restricted because of the binding constraints of impractical and often contrary regulations. Universities cannot hire faculty from abroad despite shortages. There is a lack of proper planning, appropriate guidelines, and corrective measures while sanctioning new institutions and disciplines. Thus, many institutions are being established considering only profit and with little emphasis on quality of education. Many government institutions have become battlegrounds for political rivalry resulting in poor governance leading to poor quality of education. Most the technical education institutions, including the better-known ones are understaffed and lack qualified, competent, and suitable faculty members. The institutions mostly follow the traditional method of teaching, giving little thought to the fact that information nowadays is readily available on the net. Thus students would not get interested unless they get something extra by attending classes. It is much more about content delivery than knowledge delivery in most classrooms. Often, the assignments are routine and do not involve any research or innovation. It is a great challenge to motivate and attract students to serious learning.

Moreover, the evaluation system has not been made robust enough to find out the knowledge level of the students. The students and faculty members do not understand the semester system's philosophy and the continuous evaluation process. Thus they are applied routinely, and the students concentrate only on grades and not on learning.

If we look at the whole education system starting from the elementary level, we find that the problems lie at every stage of our system. At the school level, the present-day syllabus does not stress simple and subtle concepts but involves tiresome details. Most entrance tests for admission to better-known institutions emphasize speed and memory, not calm and collected thinking. When students join undergraduate programmes, they are more exhausted than excited; they show confidence but not capacity. They show familiarity but not understanding. Too much pressure in the last few years in school makes them feel that they have achieved their goal in life after securing admission to a good institution through highly competitive admission tests. Thus when they come out of universities or highly regarded professional technical institutions, many do not have adequate knowledge to implement projects or carry out research independently. It is a fact that employers look for ready-made professionals who can directly be asked to do a specific job. In contrast, all institutions here are better suited for providing training of minds and not employment training. Since job requirements are continuously changing, it is pretty challenging to produce tailor-made professionals unless there is regular and structured interaction between academia and industries.

Thus an all-out effort is needed to produce readily- employable technical or professional workforce in the country. The improvement of infrastructure, redesign of curricula, improvement of teaching-learning methods and attracting well-qualified teachers are only a few steps that individual institutions can initiate. The main challenge is to create an academic environment and system that promote and ensure learning. However, many external and societal factors need to be addressed. The process is quite challenging but not impossible to achieve with honest effort.

Unfortunately, youth unemployment and underemployment have reached critical levels and are expected to continue to rise. Yet, as said earlier, many employers cannot find enough people with the skills to grow their business. There exists an urgent need to forge stronger links between academia and business, education and skills, theory and practice, and supply and demand to fight the employability crisis. For many young people, education is not providing the skills they need to gain the employment they aspire to. Many job aspirants lack the technical and professional skills demanded by the changing job market. This disconnection impacts a range of stakeholders - young adults, employees, employers, educators, and policymakers - the most significant impact being on the young people.

Many faculty members are not flexible in their approach to teaching. Maybe, there is a disconnection between what is taught and what the employers need. Also, changes in society have brought a sea of differences in the attitude and approach of students. Obsession with digital technology and social networking does not leave them much time or inclination for studies. They cannot concentrate, do deep research and think well and constructively. Universities and all institutions have been unable to update their syllabi in tune with the high-speed changes that are taking place, particularly in the world of technology. Hence, the students churned out are not equipped to meet the current industry requirements and often, companies have to incur additional expenses (time and monetary) to train new hires. One of the approaches to tackle the problem of lacking job readiness is partnerships between the industry and academia. It is high time now for the system needs to reboot itself, and joint initiatives by the industry and academia will play an essential part in plugging the talent gap in the years to come. Training individuals for the jobs of the future and allowing them to visualize what is possible today will make a difference in their lives and enrich our communities now and in the future.

In such an environment of high interaction, the existence of any business/economy depends on the optimal utilisation of current available resources and innovation and communication. However, there is often a gap between what college students learn in theory and what is actually practiced in industry. This further attracts cost when industries conduct training programmes internally to make their fresh talent employable. Industries also struggle to maintain bottom-lines in a competitive environment and this gap further creates a dent in profitability. There is an opportunity here. Those involved in recruitment can help address this tension by facilitating the relationship and providing a basic framework for understanding why difficulties occur when trying to collaborate between different value sets, as in industry and academia. Both the employers and higher education involve knowledge creation, dissemination, and learning.

The youth need to make informed choices about further education based on the realities of the labour market and must aim to obtain the skills and experience employers expect. Employers need to compete to attract the most talented individuals with leadership potential. They should attract, develop and retain talent for all job roles, not just future leadership. Educators need to integrate employability skills into courses and work more closely with employers to complement academic learning. In contrast, society and policymakers need to ensure they have the correct data to make decisions, stimulate the economy, foster job creation, and ensure young people have skills employers expect and link education to business.

The writer is a journalist. He can be contacted at [email protected]