Daily Times

Education and its linkage with the labour market is crucial for any society to extend support to the youth by giving access to employment opportunities. Prominence of this assemblage is essential for developing countries like Pakistan as young people subsumes quite a large proportion of the population. Pakistan currently being among the youngest countries in the world and the youngest in South Asia, after Afghanistan, contains 64 percent of population below age of 30 and 29 percent is between ages of 15 to 29 years as per the National Human Development Report (NHDR). It is expedient without any further elucidation that the future of our country – one way or the other – will be determined by the young population.It is imperative to craft eloquent opportunities in the education sector, employment generation and engagement between the education sector and the industry.NHDR shows that out of 195 countries Pakistan is among the 15 lowest spenders on education. The country needs to create 4.5 million new jobs in the next five years to utilize and embed the youth population into the labour market. Along with generating new employment opportunities it is indispensable to strengthen the relation among Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the labour market.

For equitable and sustainable growth of any society education plays a key role. Education is at the root of every society and becomes accessible to the population at large in three stages as illustrated by Martin Trow in 1970. He identified three-stages for transition and made education easy to get to for all through the Elite-Mass-Universal transition. This theory exemplifies that education at the beginning is accessible only to elite class of society. As the economy transitions to a market economy, education becomes accessible to the masses as well. The last stage of transition is towards the universal accessibility of education in a society. Pakistan has already transited from elite-to-masses in the education system and is currently switching from masses- to-universal. The rising ease of the availability of internet is making it possible provide education to previously overlooked factions in society. Increase in traditional university and educational institutes along with emerging open education establishments; universal education is now becoming reality.

However, transition would not be easy due to number of reasons. Major problem would be limited capacity, capability and resource constraints. As per estimates it’ll take around 60 years to get all children into schools if current enrollment growth rate persists.However the prime factor would be the political economy and the political will of ruling class and implementers. Right now education is a victim of experimentation and the lack of interest of policy makers.

Lack of interest is also introducing the challenge of education and market linkages. Along with the providence of education and enrollment rate the output of the education sector – number of graduates ready to provide their service to the industry – is not well managed. This is because of the fissure between HEIs and the industry. Higher Education Commission (HEC)must take the responsibility in bridging this gap between the two, so that it can be communicated to universities and the public to offer the courses that the industry has demanded and to not limit the number of graduates where supply is already in excess than demand. Because of the unplanned rat-race that the education system has entered in, the unwanted labour supply has become exceedingly larger than needed for some fields. Integration of supply from HEIs with industry demand must be matched to curb the sever issue of unemployment among educated youth. For this purpose several steps are indispensible to be taken urgently, so that current and upcoming potential graduates can have access to the labour market.

These steps are indispensible to improve the ‘ease of finding job’ as it has vital importance in connecting the industry with the labour market. The foremost step would be to create a data bank of students and the demands of the industry. No long-term policy can be made without comprehensive and wide-ranging data on the field specific, number of graduates either for current or future policy making. For this purpose it is necessary that HEC must built a portal of current enrolled students which includes how many graduates will be becoming a part of the labour market in the next 5 to 10 years and link it up with demand of industry or job market. This kind of linkage between HEIs and industry demand will help in capacity building as well as efficient allocation of educated labour force in the economic system.

As per estimates it’ll take around 60 years to get all children into schools if current enrollment growth rate persists. However the prime factor would be the political economy and the political will of ruling class and implementers. Right now education is a victim of experimentation and the lack of interest of policy makers

Complimentary steps of creating databanks would be to take surveys of universities and the job market industry. Comprehensive university-wise surveys should be conducted to collect the data of current number of graduates in each field. It is necessary to look up in how many years these graduates will be ready to step in the market.

Secondly, sector-wise surveys should be conducted to explore the demand in each field.It’ll help to tailor the education system according to the required number of graduates from various HEIs.

The third step would be forecasting for the future growth rate of each sector and the growth rate of graduates in each sector must be done. It is necessary to make a match between the HEIs and industry to curb the issue of unemployment.

There should also be a special survey of university graduates to find out difficulties in finding employment.

Last but not the least, steps must be taken to organize and update the web-portal on a continuous basis to bridge the gap between potential graduated employees and employers. It will also help individuals to get to know in which field they should enter, as per the demands of the market.

By building such connections between the HEIs and the industry it will be a lot easier for policy makers and HEC to channel funding in the required field. It will also help in finding jobs and curbing the issue of unemployment due to an increasing number of graduates in field where there is no sufficient industry demand. Such policy analysis and research agenda will automatically upraise the allocative efficiency in labor market of Pakistan. These policy recommendations will help parents and students make the right decision to get enrolled in the right field on the basis of available data and forecast.

Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, Chief Operating Officer, Zalmi Foundation  And MaazJaveed, Research Associate, Zalmi Foundation

Published in Daily Times, December 18^th2018.