Schools have now been closed for a few weeks. Students who have just completed the compulsory stage of their education are enjoying their well-earned holiday.

Many of them still do not know what career path to choose. Parents worry about what future awaits their children when they enter the labour market in a few years’ time.

The choice of career is one of the most momentous decisions for any young person. Parents fret about the choices that their children may make because experience has taught them that the things young people like to do not always open doors to stable and rewarding careers. Even those who take their studies seriously dream with starry eyes about the kind of work they would like to do in future.

They believe that tertiary education is about studying things one finds most interesting irrespective of the career opportunities that may or may not exist in some fields of study. Many educators insist that tertiary education is about learning to think critically and not about preparing oneself for the workplace.

Employers have a different perspective and if they need an engineer to keep their business going they want a highly qualified engineer with a toolkit of skills that will solve the problems that one is likely to meet in an industrial setup. An anthropologist madly in love with his profession would not function effectively in such an environment.

So it is important that young people and their parents adopt a pragmatic approach to career choice and inform themselves on the professions and trades that are most likely to be in demand in the coming few decades. Of course, one cannot be purely materialistic in determining the career path of preference. Projected future earnings are important, but so is one’s disposition to doing certain kind of work.

Some people who may had chosen the medical profession because in the past it gave ample financial reward in return for long hours of hard work, eventually suffered from burn out often ruining their private lives as the stress tolerance diminished with time.

It is important that young people and their parents adopt a pragmatic approach to career choice and inform themselves on the professions and trades that are most likely to be in demand in the coming few decades

But the caring professions, especially nursing and paramedical jobs, will undoubtedly be greatly in demand as our population ages and home and hospital care for the elderly will cause immense pressures for these services.

Many countries are realising that they have left medical planning for the coming decades on the shelf for too long. Ireland is short of 500 nurses and they are now trying to lure back nurses who left to work in England and other English speaking countries by offering them a €1,500 relocation allowance.

A nurse in Ireland earns between €27,000 and €44,000. This is what a supervisor in a bank could earn locally. But I am sure that in future we will need far more nurses than supervisors.

Learning from the experiences of other countries will help us be more effective in avoiding labour shortages in critical areas in a few years’ time.

Ideally, every Maltese student should spend at least a year abroad before making life changing decisions on career choice.

The thousands of foreign young people we see around us especially in summer is an indication of the different mindset of young people in other countries that may be less affluent then us.

I believe that these young foreigners do not come here simply out of a sense of adventure.

They are keen to earn some money to continue with their education, learn enough English to enhance their employment chances at home, possibly discover job opportunities here and open up their minds to the importance of supporting themselves independently of their parents or state handouts.

The notion that when young people seek jobs abroad the country suffers a brain drain is a fallacy.

Malta’s tribal culture ruins the chances of young people to have a balanced view of their place and worth in society.

The toxic networks that have influence in determining how people are judged at a professional level in the workplace are ingrained in Maltese society.

It is refreshing to communicate with young Maltese who are immune to the tribal and feudal undertones of our culture because they have spent time studying or working abroad.

We need more and not less of this cultural interchange, although mummies and daddies miss their children when they spend long stretches of time abroad.

Finally, employers should also play a more active role in guiding students on what to expect at the workplace.

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com