Education, training and finding job opportunities [Archives:2004/733/Culture]

Universities and training centers in any city in any country are considered the scientific landmarks where newcomers obtain the education and training needed and required for the work market. Teachers and professors collectively or individually continue through research, attending conference and continuous studies to keep up with everything new in science and technology. Their findings and the research conducted in the social, economic or educational fields are always of benefit to one or another sector. Thus, universities and training centers are somehow connected with creating job opportunities through teaching or training students in order to provide the market place with qualified workers.

Teaching verses training
Universities until recent time were concerned only with the teaching aspect of the educational operation. Many of the universities continue to do that still until today. But many universities' officials have realized that teaching alone would not lead their universities to a bright future in light of the competition from training centers. Employers continue to demand and prefer those with experience and knowledge instead of those with just universities degrees but who still require training. Some universities, through field surveys of what training centers are offering, have begun to adopt the same thing through new measures, the development of the curricula taught at their universities and introducing supportive subjects that would guarantee their graduates job opportunities. They try to lure employers to seek university trained graduates rather than training centers' graduates, because they are the best.
Looking at the reality of the situation at our universities, many of the universities are still concerned only with the teaching aspect of the education operation. This requires them to reconsider the situation and to develop the educational operation at universities in order for their graduates to be qualified and acceptable in the market place. Applied sciences have become important subjects to be taught for meeting the demands of the competitive market place. Another factor is the fact that the market place nowadays prefers a graduate with more than one major or with one major and one minor. The kinds of such double qualifications are endless, such as a major in engineering and a minor in business administration, or a major in industrial engineering and a minor in marketing etc.
The mechanism for admission to universities and the distribution of enrolled students at various university faculties must be reconsidered. The grade point average obtained in high school does not necessarily reflect the qualification of a student. Universities should provide general education in the freshman year, allowing students to determine the fields they would actually succeed in, according to his/her developed trends. The universities have to contribute to eliminating situations where some students are enrolled in a specialization of no interest to them but rather of interest to their families or relatives. The freshman year will be the decisive factor in setting the correct path for the student to continue on.
Furthermore, the educational system should not restrict the number of graduates in any field. The number of graduates should not be set to the number of available job opportunities in the market place. In fact, competition to obtain the available jobs would encourage and motivate students to excel in order to be the selected ones. As far as the surplus of graduates, over a long period, they could be exported to neighboring countries. An example of this is taking place in India and Egypt, where the surplus teachers in the two countries are considered important economic sources and provide their countries with hard currency.
Another important issue that must be reconsidered in the educational system, is that the system must differentiate one teacher from another depending on their capabilities. Teachers should not be considered equal. They must be financially treated according to their levels, skills, qualifications and capabilities. The Civil Service Law must also be amended. It is not logical to prevent a teacher from expanding his capabilities and specialty through using them outside his university, in order to improve his living condition. The fact is that developing and using his specialty will be positively reflected on his university and students as well. The current Civil Service Law compels teachers to seek and invest in commercial businesses of no connection to their specialty, simply to avoid contradiction with the law.
Finally, I find myself suggesting and strongly recommending that a university should conduct a field survey similar to the one made in Austria, in order to find out the need and requirement of the market place at both the private and public sectors and to evaluate the universities' graduates and the suitability of the fields being taught comparable to needs and demands of the market place. Furthermore, there is a need to find and search for the reasons leading to unemployment, if it exists. This field survey should be conducted and consist of independent teams to guarantee reaching suggestions and recommendations that can be implemented in reality.
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