The Analysis on Employability Gap of Students in China Vocational-Technical School and Its Causes

Transcription

1 The Analysis on Employability Gap of Students in China Vocational-Technical School and Its Causes WANG Ting Business School of China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, P.R.China, Abstract: Currently, a great gap exists between vocational and technical students employability and enterprises ability requirements. The most acute problem lies in that the students have bad self-positioning, poor practical ability and weak compounded adaptability. In addition, some non-cognitive abilities like sense of responsibility, teamwork, work initiative, integrity and honesty are also very important. According to analysis of supply and demand of human resources, the main causes leading to the great employability gap are as following: researches on professional skills by employers are deficient; labor force demand signals are vague; the development of vocational and technical school is not market-oriented; the training mode of high-skilled talents is monotonous; the lack of industrial programs result in low investment efficiency of human resources. Keywords: employability gap, vocational-technical school students, structural unemployment 1. Employment of Vocational and Technical School Students of China Perplexed by Structural Contradictions The social and economic development of China needs not only high-leveled talents with technical innovation ability but also numbers of high-skilled workers who can meet demands of industrial development. Therefore, vocational education takes the mission of cultivating high-skilled talents and plays a more and more important role in our modern educational system. With further development of market economy of China, especially when industrial structure was adjusted greatly after China being a member of WTO, the invention of new techniques, new processes and new procedures introduce higher demands for technical workers, which has brought significant impact upon the employment environment of labor market in China. At present, the problem of structural unemployment is very serious. On the one hand, there are rich human resources in China; On the other hand, the shortage of technicians exists everywhere. The situation of U-V (Unemployment-Vacancy) is obvious. This is a brand new challenge to the vocational and technical education of China. Training the employability of students to meet the demands of market has become an important goal of our vocational and technical education development and a strategic choice to realize quality employment of graduates of vocational and technical schools. 2. Research and Cultivation of Employability Emphasized by Foreign Countries Employability refers to an individual s capability of gaining initial employment, maintaining employment, and making progress in employment to deal with changes in work and life (defined by International Labor organization, ILO). Vocational and technical education is a significant way of training employability of high-skilled workers. Researches on employability have been done around the world from the aspect of characteristics of each country s labor market. And related research results are applied as important basis to direct the development of education and training career. ACER (The Australian Council for Educational Research) believes that employability refers not only to capability of gaining employment but also to performing one s potential of making progress in working to contribute to the realization of the strategic goal of an enterprise. it also put forward a MKC (Mayer Key Competencies) model, which includes seven key competences: gathering and analysis of information, communication of ideas and information, planning and organization of activities, teamwork, 60

2 application of mathematics and technology, settlement of problems and application of technology. SCANS (1991) of US department of Labor classified employability into two classes: basic skills and workability. Basic skills include three parts: basic capability, thinking ability, individual idiosyncrasy. Workability includes five parts: resources, communication between each other, information, system and technology. DFEE (Department for Education and Employment ) (1997) put forward that employability should include traditional concept of intelligence and skills, key skills (communication skills, computing skills, IT skills, and skills of learning to study), individual idiosyncrasy of market value and knowledge of how to operate an enterprise. CBC (2000) proposed that employability should include basic skills (communication skills, information of management, ability of applying mathematic to consider and solve problems), personal management skills (active attitudes and performance ability, responsibility, excellent adaptability, continuous studying ability, and safety sense in working), group working skills (cooperating with others, participating items and carrying out tasks). 3. Current Employability Gaps of Vocational and Technical Students of China At present, a big gap exists between employability of students of vocational and technical schools and the capability required by employers. A questionnaire for employers of students from vocational and technical schools in traffic field shows that the most important three problems are bad self-positioning, poor practical ability and weak compounded adaptability, which tells us that vocational and technical schools should enhance cultivating practical ability of students, strengthen general skills and comprehensive qualities of students to improve their compounded adaptability. Simultaneously, what s more important is that students should be helped to make a good self-positioning in employment during the process of education. Besides, the deficiency of skills of interviewing, weakness in specialized theories, and limited scope of knowledge, etc. are listed in the bottom of answers to the questionnaire (as in the following chart). It is clear that skills of interviewing, specialized theories and scope of knowledge are not the decisive factors in the process of employment for students from vocational and technical schools, which differs from the employment situation of students with higher degrees like university students, because employers of vocational and technical students prefer their practical ability, adaptability and down-to-earth responsibility of fulfilling missions. This questionnaire also investigates the three aspects of knowledge, skills and attitudes to find out what are the essential elements concerned by employers in employability of students from vocational and technical schools. In the aspect of knowledge, academic knowledge has the strongest impact on employability of these students. In essential skills, operational skill, learning ability, language skills and capability of solving problems, executive ability are all crucial to the employability of these students. However, operational skill is considered as the most important employability by all the samples. The percentage of choosing the skill is higher than those of other items. In the aspect of attitude, employee s responsibility, teamwork, activity, integrity and honesty are vital to employability of vocational and technical students. Among them, responsibility is considered as the most important essential element of employability by all samples. The percentage of choosing this item is higher than those of other items. However, all the samples show that ability of anti-stress, motives of success and self-esteem of vocational and technical students are not cared by employers. 4. Analysis of Causes of Vocational and Technical Students Employability Gap Currently, the employability gap of vocational and technical students is so big that the shortage of high-skilled talents can not meet the demands of the fast development of society and economy. According to the supply and demand of human resources, the main causes of the gap are as the following: 4.1 Deficiency of investigation on position skills and vague signals of labor market demands 61

3 As the demand-side, generally employers do not make careful research on position skills. In the process of development, no skill standards for professional talents, vague talent market demands signals and impeded information channels contribute to the fact that vocational and technical students are cultivated blindly without necessary directivity, which results in the big gap between training objectives and actual demands of employers. The outdated knowledge and teaching materials also affect much the targeted development of students employability. 4.2 Deficiency of market-orientation in development of vocational and technical schools and the monotonous cultivation mode of high-skilled talents As the supplier of talents, it is hard for vocational and technical schools to embody the guiding ideology of cultivating employability of students in discipline construction, specialty setup, teacher resources and so on. Today, there are not enough investigations of specialty setup of these schools, especially no judgment of the real demands of market for graduates. Instead, only those hot disciplines are set up, which has caused the homogenization of disciplines in different schools. The ultimate result of such education is the supply of talents can not meet the demands of market and structural imbalance will appear. In the process of cultivating students, the education modes of all the vocational and technical schools are the same and there is no independent system of practice education plans. Most of the teaching plans are just the schedule plan of theoretical teaching. Practice education is a certain proportion of theoretical courses. Thus, this kind of practice education can not train the professional capacity and position skills systematically. Besides specific knowledge and skills, students of vocational and technical schools still want very much those crucial capabilities for employment like practical ability, learning ability, communication skills, organization and management ability, the sense of responsibility, teamwork ability and all the other non-cognitive skills. 4.3 Low efficiency of human resource investment caused by lack of industrial planning in the development of skilled talents The government and industries as important and influential bodies in market haven t made continuous and normative research on the status quo and tendency of related talents. According to our research, many industries do not master the amount, structure, density, etc of skilled talents. Moreover, what kind of skilled talents and how many skilled talents are needed in future have no necessary forecasts and planning, which will directly lead to the result that the suppliers and demanders of labor market can not grasp the macro trend of the development of talents and can not cultivate and construct high talented workforce. Consequently, the shortage of high-skilled talents will emerge in the development of industry. In addition, compared with the quantity planning of talents, the research on employability involving knowledge, skills and attitudes of skilled talents is more important, which is a basis for building criteria for appraisal vocational skills and a reference for cultivating high quality students of vocational and technical schools. Departments of our government and industrial organizations should carry on high-leveled talent researches, which will aid to foster employability of vocational and technical students and change existing phenomenon of low efficiency of human resource investment. 5. Suggested Policies for Cultivating Employability of Vocational and Technical Students The essence of shortage of high-skilled talents reflects contradictions between the rapid social and economic development and vocational and technical education system. Only when T vocational and technical education reform is observed and discussed by considering the big environment of society and economy, when vocational and technical education development objectives of cultivating employability of students and when the strategic option of these students quality employment is realized, can the problem of high-skilled talents shortage be solved fundamentally and effectively. 5.1 Enhance research on skilled talents, clarify and reinforce market demand signals for vocational and technical education Vocational and technical schools should have clear market orientation in discipline setup and training 62

4 program. However, the biggest problem is that talent market and employers do not express their demands at present. Certain departments of government and industries have not made powerful talent programs. The validity of present criteria for appraisal vocational skills is low and market demand signals are not clear. Therefore, it is difficult for vocational and technical schools to make education directions and objectives. U.S. Department of Labor and organizations of related industries pay close attention to vocation analysis. They have made detailed research and clear description about employee features, job requirements, experience requirements, vocation features, career requirements and concrete vocation information (including knowledge, skills, tasks, machines, tools or devices needed by vocations) and release the information through ACINET so as to guide labor market to develop healthily. Departments of our governments at all levels and industrial organizations as well as enterprises and employers should attach great importance to the ongoing settlement of employability problem. In terms of features of skilled talents, scientific, reasonable and well-organized appraisal system for vocational skills should be designed to give detailed description of vocational skills related to key positions and types of work and continue clarifying and strengthening market demand signals for skilled talents. The related information can be passed to vocational and technical schools via market mechanism so that graduates from these schools can meet demands of social and economic development better to reduce the employability gap when they are to be employed. 5.2 Promote reform of talent cultivation modes of vocational and technical schools with the target of fostering students employability Vocational and technical schools should be guided by demands of enterprises and employers and enhance understanding the labor market and the related cutting-edge development of technology and job category of the industry, grasp the employability gaps existing in the graduates cultivated by these schools, adjust timely teaching mode and curriculum system and closely focus on the target of cultivating students employability to promote reform of talent cultivating modes. Concrete measures are proposed in the following aspects: firstly, the communication and cooperation mechanisms between schools and main enterprises and employers should be established to form school-enterprise cooperation and order-oriented cultivation mode; secondly, the skills required by key positions and job categories of employers should be investigated and surveyed to make employability-based student cultivation programs. In addition, the teaching objectives and teaching methods should be adjusted to highlight the key points and actual operability; thirdly, the education system should be changed to further increase the proportion of enterprise internship. The vocational education classrooms should be extended from schools to factory floors, service places and fields so that the advantages of systems like combination of work and learning, part work, part study etc. can be fully achieved, and adequate opportunities can be provided for students to enhance their practical ability; fourthly, cultivation systems of related specialties should be connected to each other, setup of relevant basic and specialized core curriculums should be enhanced to make graduates of different majors possess better adaptability and border range of choices. It is considerable to set the basic and specialized core curriculums for lower grade students of vocational and technical schools, and then divide them into different majors when in higher grades. In this way, students vocational interest can be fully considered, and the employment matching score can be improved; fifthly, the resource support from competent authorities of all industries, enterprises and all sectors of society should be won to provide a good cultivation environment for improving students employability. 5.3 Perfect school-enterprise cooperation modes and establish a scientific evaluation and tracking mechanism for vocational-technical school students employability In order to make student cultivation programs for vocational-technical schools, close collaboration between schools and enterprises are needed to comprehensively study the vocational-technical school graduates knowledge, skills and attitude required in employment when they move to work. The employability models for all students of different majors following the law of specialty development and meeting market demands should be investigated and designed. Moreover, cultivation objectives should be transformed into competence standards according to the category system of common skills and 63

5 professional capability. The cultivation effect should also be measured by the achievement of competence standards. Merced County in California of the USA tried and popularized a new employability score card in 2002, which is mainly used to check whether students can meet the skill requirements of employers. Students can prove their own employability and employment attitude by obtaining the score cards. Meanwhile, employers can also choose their employees through checking the score card. Based on a clear understanding of the vocational and technical education development goal cultivating students employability, we can certainly learn from the aforementioned method and design a measuring index system for students' employability on the basis of vocational and technical school students' employability models. On the one hand, the development of application tools can help vocational and technical schools to evaluate and trace the current situation of students employability and constantly adjust teaching directions and teaching methods. On the other hand, it enables students to analyze their own strengths and weaknesses in the process of employment and helps students and employers achieve two-way match. 6. Conclusion Employability gap is one of the most important reasons that lead to the structural unemployment of vocational and technical students in china. The employability including knowledge, skill and attitude should be improved by some mesaures which are as following: enhancing research on skilled talents, clarify and reinforce market demand signals for vocational and technical education; promoting reform of talent cultivation modes of vocational and technical schools with the target of fostering students employability ; perfecting school-enterprise cooperation modes and establishing a scientific evaluation and tracking mechanism for vocational-technical school students employability. Acknowledgements: This paper is the result of a research project Study on the Employability-based Personnel Training Model of Institutions of Higher Learning entrusted by Beijing Education Science 11th five-year plan and it also won financial support from Chinese National Society Science Foundation project of Improve University Students Employability: Research on the Issue and Proposal of the Structural Unemployment of the Graduates in China which is presided by Wang Ting. References [1]. Hu Xiaoxu, Students employability should be the first cultivation target of vocational and technical schools, Liaoning Professional Academic Journal, 2003(10), (In Chinese). [2]. Li Guang, Develop vocational education and cultivate workers employability, Vocational Education Research, 2005(1), (In Chinese). [3]. Shan Songlin, Cultivate high-skilled talents with employment orientation, Training in China, 2004(12), (In Chinese). [4]. Wang Ting, Tang Daisheng, Summary of oversea employability frame and its model research, Truth Seeking, 2006(3), (In Chinese). [5]. Employability: From Framework to Practice. Department of Education, Science and Training of Australian Government, [6]. Hillage, J. and Pollard, E., Employability: Developing a Framework for Policy Analysis. London: Department for Education and Employment, [7]. What Work Requires of Schools: a SCANS Report for America U.S. Department of Labor,