A hearty well done is due to all those involved in the conference on strengthening vo-cational and professional education (VPET) in Malta, which was held recently at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology.
While the whole topic and vision of VPET is clearly the ethos that makes Mcast and its hard-working leaders tick, at the same time this is a subject which I feel (and I may indeed be wrong) has not yet captured the thinking and concerns of the people at large in the country and, in particular (and regrettably so), many employers.
The basic reason for this is that so many people still think – and especially so when it comes to guiding or addressing their children’s futures – in terms of an old model that goes something like this: profession above vocation above occupation. This is a mental model that operates only in terms of conceiving a hierarchy that is rooted or existing only in a sociological – some might indeed even say Marxist – context.
But the reality is that, from a national economic productivity viewpoint, this model is not at all one that reflects the country’s productivity reality. While I do not have figures readily at hand, I am almost sure that splitting what each – the so-called ‘professions’ input, the vocational/technical and the mere ‘other workers’ – contributes to our GDP (defective as that measure always is of any country’s worth) would come up with some surprising outcomes.
My hunch is that vocational together with other workers’ contribution to the country’s real output worth will far exceed that of the so-called ‘professions’.
In such a context, it is becoming ever more important to really value vocational training and qualifications. Those providing the presumed bigger contributions of vocational and occupational outputs to the country’s worth may not remain much longer in acceptance of situations that refuse their real worth.
They will clamour for recognition in every type of workplace (including trade unionistic) context. And those will include, particularly, situations of recruitment and/or promotions. Our society, and, particularly so, our employers, have for far too long, and through no real blame of their own, come to be attuned to structures where it is predominantly academic recognition that calls the shots but there is much to suggest that this situation may not remain the reality for too long into the future.
In the financial services sector, but possibly elsewhere too, I can speak of at least one body that has started to do some serious thinking about this whole issue of vocational qualifications and training.
It is becoming ever more important to really value vocational training and qualifications
On the MFSA’s education consultative council, which I chair, there has already been at length discussion among the various professional and teaching bodies in the sector.
We have had knowledgeable speakers on the subject to address us and we have come round to a strong feeling that other bodies, like the Malta Bankers Association and the Malta Employers Association, and even other bodies in other sectors, should no longer wait for any form of official legislation on this topic (such as may affect the Malta Qualifications Recognition Information Centre structures or methods of operating) but, acting proactively, seek whatever input they can get directly from the Ministry of Education’s very capable experts in this area.
Will one, in the future, be able to advertise jobs which require only academic paper accreditation?
Will one be able to discriminate for a promotion in favour of a holder of only high academic qualifications and against one who has evidenced high vocational attributes or certification?
Will employers be able to get away with not spending a single euro on in-house (or even outsourced) training to promising vocational skills possessors?
There is at Mcast a set of people who think and act passionately about themes such as these. These are the various heads of the institutes for applied sciences, business management and commerce, community services, creative arts, engineering and transport, and information and communications technology. They strike me as all being highly enthusiastic about having in all courses in these institutes those elements of knowledge absorption, skills acquisitioning, concern about competitiveness, establishing of linkages and applied research.
But, extremely important, the employment world outside of Corradino Hill badly needs to help these people.
For example, these are academics and teachers who absolutely need employers to be much, much more forthcoming than they presently are in terms of offering internships, work stages, apprenticeships, job awareness programmes (even short ones do help, you know) to all Mcast students in all the mentioned institutes.
VPET is anything but new abroad. Look at the Germans, the Swedes, the Swiss and others.
Their set-ups in this area have certainly been one of the reasons for their economic successes. For many years, they have even polished to a high level their structures and development for VET degree accreditation.
This indeed is a reality of the European productive work scene and we in Malta cannot carry on thinking that we can hold our hands out against it and say “shoo” to it.
It is coming, whether we like it or not.
John Consiglio is chairman of the Malta Financial Services Authority’s educational consultative council but writes this piece in his personal capacity.