Unemployment and educational attainment are major concerns for many EU member states especially among youths. According to the document Europe 2020, the EU’s aim is for 75 per cent of its 20 to 64-year-olds to be employed by the year 2020.
To achieve this, the EU set up a strategic framework on education and training that focuses on higher educational attainment and higher cognitive skills. This will hopefully have a ripple effect on youths’ employability and their country’s economic growth.
Malta is lacking behind this target, with an employment rate of 63.2 per cent, making it the lowest in Europe.
A 2006 study by the Employment and Training Corporation, entitled The school to work transition of young people in Malta, found that what is being taught at school is not enough to prepare young people for work. It said employers look for competences and attributes that the Maltese educational system is not providing since it is too academically oriented.
One of the steps that the EU’s strategy recommends is that Malta should take measures to address the gaps between individuals’ skills and jobs’ requirements. A way to address this skills gap is to have the right services in place. This could be done by having an effective career education structure in schools, since this is where the next generation of workers gain knowledge and competences.
Career education is about giving students information about jobs, careers, training and knowledge regarding the labour market that are outside their immediate environment. Students learn about the various different careers that exist, not only about those they may have heard about in the environment in which they are brought up.
Equipped with this knowledge, students consider various future work options in which their interests, skills and abilities may thrive. Through career education each person is assisted to gain knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours necessary to make healthy occupational choices and have a successful career.
In 2007, Manwel Debono, Stephen Camilleri, Joseph Galea and Dorianne Gravina wrote a report entitled Career Guidance Policy for Schools to highlight what could be improved in Malta, especially within existing services, as they observed a number of structural and procedural weaknesses. One of their recommendations was to have a developmental career education programme beginning from Year 4.
Career management and development skills do not focus only on how to look for work, apply for it, write a CV or fill an application form. They also emphasise how to have a healthy concept of one’s self, how to relate effectively with others, how to change and grow during one’s life, how to deal with change and transition, and so forth. Yet for such learning to occur, ample time is needed, as well as an adequate build-up process.
The report suggested that there should be a programme about careers incorporated in the subject of Personal and Social Development (PSD). In PSD, students are taught to reflect and develop skills regarding themselves and related to others. Besides focusing on self-development, interpersonal relationships and social skills, which are all skills important for employability, part of the PSD syllabus focuses directly on the concept of work.
The Career Guidance Policy proposed that PSD lessons in Forms 3 to 5 should be increased to two lessons per week
In fact, career management skills are given so much value in PSD that the syllabus refers to the topic from the very start. In Form 1, students discuss various occupations; how a particular occupation contributes to society and its benefits, and the influence of gender stereotypes on the choice of career. In Form 2, they discuss subject choice as well as sound decision-making in relation to the students’ future.
In Form 3, students learn about the meaning of work; why people work and about the characteristics and abilities a person needs for particular jobs and careers. Topics such as wages, leave, sick leave, safety at work, conditions at work and accountability towards one’s employer are also covered.
Form 4 students discuss why work is considered a right; rights and responsibilities of employees and employers; the planning of one’s studies and importance of lifelong learning; and budgeting. Most teachers also include lessons on interview skills, even though they are not part of the PSD syllabus.
In the last year of secondary school, PSD teachers show students how to write a CV; how to look for work; come up with tips for an interview and conduct an interview simulation where students are then given feedback on what they can improve. By preparing students in this manner, PSD teachers try to ensure students’ future employability by being skilled enough to know how to search for work, apply for it, hold on to it and safeguard themselves.
Students also gain knowledge about jobs and careers from the Student Services department, which organises visits to various workplaces so that students learn about different jobs. The department also offers students one-to-one guidance about their future, whether it is academic or work-related, and they manage the Job Exposure scheme.
This scheme involves students writing a letter of application, preparing a CV and sitting for a real interview whereby a panel assesses the students’ initiative, disposition, responsibility and communication. If chosen, the students are sent for five days in a formal work environment to gain experience in the company the students applied for. The aim of the Job Exposure scheme is for students to increase their awareness of careers related to the sector concerned.
The Malta PSD Association believes that although career management and development skills are already being taught during PSD lessons, PSD teachers could do much more if they are allowed more lessons. During PSD lessons teachers are only tackling the basic issues. If more time is given, students could be taught in more detail what influences life’s successes, learn more how to plan for their future and how to adapt to life changes.
The need for more PSD lessons was also highlighted in the Career Guidance Policy. It proposed that PSD lessons in Forms 3 to 5 should be increased to two lessons per week so that PSD teachers would have more time to increase the educational opportunities in response to the changing labour market.
This would also provide additional time and space to discuss career management skills in more detail and to process in greater depth the experience students receive from the Job Exposure Scheme.
A whole-school approach would lead the way to imparting career education lessons across subjects, with the coordination of the college career coordinator, career advisors and other professionals in the guidance field. This would encourage youths to be better equipped to seek and maintain a job and develop their career.
Furthermore, if PSD is introduced in more post-secondary and tertiary institutions, the area of career management skills would prove beneficial to students who are more mature and who need to make informed decisions about their future careers.
Elysia Micallef is assistant PRO of the Malta Personal and Social Development Association.