Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/257374
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 9 FEBRUARY 2014 Opinion 21 I 'd like to share with you some reflections about my very uncomfortable role of being both Minister for Education and for Employment. When I join my colleagues at European level, in the Councils, they have the comfort, I could say, that they can always blame their colleagues when there is a disconnection between the world of Education and the world Employment. In my case – unless I become severely schizophrenic in the next few years – I can only blame myself if this kind of disparity becomes apparent in Malta. In Malta – and this was also a wise decision of the previous administration – we link both aspects together. We are the only country in the EU where the same Ministry is both responsible for Education and Employment, and this makes a lot of sense. The connection does not happen automatically. We really have to work hard as we do tend in our country to work on our own. I remember when some years back UNIDO had sent a delegation to Malta to analyse vocational education and its relation to the job market and economy; they said that we thought we were a visiting an island and we found an archipelago of islands not talking to each other. Hence, it's good to have such meetings as that held last week at the MCAST Partners' Conference where educators and business people talk to each other. For this meeting to bear fruit it cannot be a one off. MCAST must set up a permanent structure with the various sectors of our economy where we have an ongoing relationship. The world is changing so much that education can fall behind what is happening in the economy. The rhythms are different, business is quicker than education. It takes more time to develop a syllabus, train teachers and then to develop the syllabus. Instead of training workers for tomorrow we train workers for yesterday and this is a challenge for education systems worldwide. It is very easy for the world of education to fall behind from the world of labour and economy. The biggest challenge that our country faces is not job creation, that is always a challenge, a bigger challenge is making sure that there are people with the right skills and a strong work ethic. We are failing on both and I will explain why – the numbers show it. We need a permanent relationship with economic operators so that there is an ongoing employability audit of our syllabi and pedagogy. We must check permanently what we are teaching and how we are educating students to assess that what we are doing is relevant to the world out there. On the whole, people in education tend to be defensive and easily offended when we are accused of not developing people with the right skills. We must face the truth and relax, instead of being defensive. We must become less defensive and ask ourselves what our students are learning. Is it relevant to what is going on out there and to what is going to happen in a few years time. The concept of employability should not be defined in a restrictive manner for a specific job but there are employability skills which run across different jobs which are essential skills for people when they enter the labour market; such as the ability to work with each other, the ability to solve problems, to communicate, to take the initiative. These are skills that our education system has not cultivated enough. We need to work harder to instill these values and attitudes in our formal education system. We thank organisations like Young Enterprise for helping to develop these skills and values and address shortcomings. When we participate in international surveys on how we fare in terms of our education systems compared to other countries and it is an exercise that we must carry out all the time because if we fail to do reforms, we fall behind. When we fail to do something that we should be doing – i.e. reforms in education – we are falling behind in terms of global competitiveness. Other countries will overtake us and take the business to their country to the detriment of Malta. Moreover, what happens today in a country where borders are meaningless, when capital moves and investment moves and you do not have the right people with the right skills, either investors do not come or else labour is sought from overseas. The last 5,300 jobs created in the last 10 months, half of them have been taken by non-Maltese nationals. In a globalised economy, it does make sense to have talent from different countries and this enriches our economy. However, there are jobs that can be taken locally and they are not being taken up for two reasons. Evarist Bartolo >> Why have schools? Instead of training workers for tomorrow we train workers for yesterday