On square pegs and round holes : employers and education in Malta

Abstract

Teachers generally, and guidance personnel in particular, are aware that while their activities in schools have a broadly liberal inspiration - in that they are mainly concerned with the personal, intellectual and social development of their students - there is also an important economic agenda that they are contributing to. This agenda is explicitly declared in various sections of the Maltese National Minimum Curricula. At the Primary Level, for instance, section A.Sc of Legal Notice 73 of 1989 informs us that one of the principal aims of education is to inculcate 'work attitudes and the right use of tools'. Similarly, and even more explicitly, the National Curriculum for the Secondary Level declares that at this stage one of the aims is 'the initiation into the process of qualification at a later stage for a working life', while a key function of this level is 'not merely that of quickening the pace of each person's development and formation, but also that of moulding the nation, establishing a new cultural and technological profile for the whole country', so that the country achieves 'a work-force in greater proportion literate and trained, qualified and specialised, as well as able and flexible to retrain, respecialise or specialise later in a narrower field' (Section lc of Legal Notice 109 of 1990). At the Post-Secondary level, Legal Notice 109 of 1991 states that students should be offered 'a broaderbased education in order to help promote a greater flexibility in their adapting and contributing to changing patterns of employment' . Such declarations are not unique to Malta: most curricula, whether issued on a national or more strictly regional level, attempt to connect what happens in schools with what happens, or what is thought will/should happen, in the world of work. Neither are they unique to the latter end of the 20th century. Indeed, it was Adam Smith who first argued in his Wealth of Nations that an increase in wealth was directly linked to an increase in the capital stock. As I have argued at length elsewhere (Sultana, 1992a), human capital theory and the belief that education is a key economic investment (rather than merely a cost) for a nation have influenced governments the world over, and became particularly attractive in post-war Malta under the influence of the Oxford economist Sir Thomas Balogh, a consultant to the Labour administration. Policy-makers feel that they can justify expenditure in education - which in Malta, as in most countries, constitutes around 10% of the national budget (Sultana, 1997) - by being responsive to the needs of industry. Parents too expect schools to make a difference to the economic chances of their offspring, in terms of facilitating access to lucrative occupational niches, and therefore they too tend to be particularly keen to consider the linkage between education and employment. Teachers, on their part, will prepare students for the world of work, both consciously and explicitly - in and across various curricular subjects - as well as unconsciously and indirectly - through the way they socialise students into particular ways of life. Students themselves will want to see a clear relationship between their studies and their future adult work roles, and will tend to criticise the school if that linkage is blurred or postponed. Indeed, many a parent and teacher will try to motivate youngsters to invest in study by pointing out to the long-term economic benefits this will supposedly bring with it. In this study, we shall focus more particularly on how employers view the relationship between education and employment. Employers will claim that as key contributors to a nation's wealth-creation process, they have a right to influence what happens in schools, given that they are the ultimate 'end-users' of school-leavers. They will argue that educators are directly involved in the formation of future workers since they communicate knowledge, skills and attitudes to the younger generation. Many of these workers will be wage-earners - those who do not depend on a wage and are self-employed in Malta currently stands at just under 11 % ofthe total supply oflabour (Central Office of Statistics, 1996, No .31 /96) - and their employers will be in a position to evaluate the extent to which formal and informal educational provision on the island has successfully prepared the younger generation for the work tasks available, and for the new work tasks that a dynamic economy needs to generate. Employers will carry out such evaluative exercises incidentally and on an individual basis, as they go about recruiting and selecting personnel for their enterprises. They will have to decide whether they will consider, and if so, the weighting they will assign to - such factors as formal qualifications, school reports, character references, work experience and so on. Employers will also identify characteristics to evaluate potential recruits in a more systematic manner, as an associated group on a national- occasionally even supranational (for instance, European) -level. They will claim that as 'end-users', they are in a good position to judge the extent to which education generally, and schooling specifically, are 'producing' workers with the 'right' profiles, in terms of a complex package that consists of attitudes, personality characteristics, knowledge and skills. Guidance teachers, located as they are at the very interstices between school and work, and in their role as key managers of the transition between those two worlds, are among the first educators to experience the pressures and requests directed by employers at the educational system. Such pressures are felt in several ways. Employers will influence guidance personnel's work directly. Zahra and Ebejer (1992, p. 101) have for instance shown that over 65% of their stratified sample of 60 employers and personnel managers representing the different types of industries in Malta maintain links with schools, and particularly with guidance teachers, in order to obtain information about potential candidates for work vacancies. Some 43% recruit directly from schools (ibid., p. 41). At a higher, national level, groups representing employer interests will also influence educational policy-makers. There are many instances where the Education Division, in response to perceived labour market needs, turns to guidance personnel, asking them to help in channelling students towards specific areas of study and work. A case in point can be found in a document evaluating the Extended Skills Training Scheme, which notes that ' ... vocational guidance and counselling [teachers] can assist in encouraging students to opt for the apprenticeship route', and that 'Every effort must be made from a very early stage to ensure that our students learn and become aware of the importance of training for a vocational career. This has to be done through systematic guidance and counselling' (Education Division 1996, pp.l, 6). These and other demands by employers, mediated via education officials, will ultimately influence the way guidance teachers manage the choice of new subject options by students, and which educational and occupational paths to promote and to discourage. It becomes important to understand what it is that employers want from education, whether employers themselves are in agreement about such' needs' , and how they go about establishing their particular agendas. It is also important to investigate the motives, or sets of motives, that underlie employers' demands, and whether these stand in conflict with what we are attempting to do as educators. In other words, I propose to explore a number of elements in the relationship between employers and education, by addressing the following five questions: - Who are the 'employers'? - What are the structures of influence of employers in educational policymaking in Malta? - What kinds of demands do (Maltese) employers make on the educational system, and are these demands homogenous and consistent? - How do (Maltese) employers consider schooling when it comes to the process of recruiting and selecting employees? - Are (Maltese) employers' views and practices defensible and justifiable, if wc consider them on both technical and normative grounds? In answering these questions, I will draw on available research to connect local practice with that obtaining in other countries, so as to better tease out the motivations and logic behind particular demands and practices, and the implications that these have for our educational endeavours.