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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.