Call to Strengthen Partnerships Between Businesses and Educational Institutions
14 May 2015
Read by 2116 persons
Participants at the national conference on business, employability, and professional training and higher education programs highlighted the need to strengthen partnerships between businesses and educational institutions to better ensure graduate employability and reduce unemployment.
Organized Thursday in Tunis, at the initiative of the Ministry of Professional Training and Employment, the conference aims to examine ways to strengthen partnerships between educational and training institutions and businesses to increase employment opportunities for young people, particularly university graduates.
"It is also about strengthening a culture of responsibility and promoting initiative among young people to create added value within the company and improve the social climate," Emna Arifa, Director General of Assistance and Professional Adaptation at the Ministry of Professional Training and Employment, told TAP.
She added that the conference, bringing together stakeholders and representatives of businesses and educational institutions, as well as representatives of civil society and experts, also aims to discuss ways to guarantee youth employability.
In this context, she indicated that employability, defined as the potential for adaptability and versatility demonstrated by an individual, must be encouraged by businesses and supported by a smart system of education and professional training.
She also noted that this day will facilitate the identification of the prerequisites of employability culture, responsibilities regarding the anchoring of this culture, and the changes to be made in terms of approaches, methodologies, tools, and partnership relations between businesses, private and public institutions, and stakeholders who guide the learning and employment system.
For his part, Salah Ben Hamad, an academic and international expert in training engineering, stressed the need to involve businesses in the development of training and education programs to better adapt supply to demand in the job market.
He also emphasized the importance of ensuring the training of human resources throughout their professional careers so that their skills are always adapted to the new needs of businesses. Speaking on this occasion, Mahmoud Jaballah, director of a business group, believed that the development of business productivity depends on strengthening its employability.
However, he stressed that businesses today face a major difficulty: finding competent and immediately operational candidates. "Businesses invest a lot of time and money to make new recruits productive immediately," he said, noting that several multinationals invest in Tunisia but do not find qualified workers.
Another business leader mentioned the cumbersome administrative procedures that prevent investors from settling in certain disadvantaged regions to create jobs. Abdeljelil Bedoui, an economist, believes that these are structural problems that have not, until now, been the subject of political will to carry out the necessary reforms to address the issue of employment, employability, and training.
"The absence of sectoral policies has created a discordance between the dynamics of the productive system (based on the employment of skilled and low-cost labor) and the dynamics of the educational system (which creates a growing number of graduates), leading to an imbalance in the job market and maintaining a high unemployment rate," he explained. Abdeljelil Bedoui stressed the need to create a dynamic strategic articulation between the evolution of the education system and the evolution of the productive system.
"It is necessary to rethink the education system by programming dynamic articulation with the productive system," he said. And he added, "it is also necessary to know how to transition to price-competitive ability by giving importance to research, development, and innovation to diversify and improve productivity.
Webmanagercenter.com
Published May 14, 2015.
Posted online May 14, 2015.
Organized Thursday in Tunis, at the initiative of the Ministry of Professional Training and Employment, the conference aims to examine ways to strengthen partnerships between educational and training institutions and businesses to increase employment opportunities for young people, particularly university graduates.
"It is also about strengthening a culture of responsibility and promoting initiative among young people to create added value within the company and improve the social climate," Emna Arifa, Director General of Assistance and Professional Adaptation at the Ministry of Professional Training and Employment, told TAP.
She added that the conference, bringing together stakeholders and representatives of businesses and educational institutions, as well as representatives of civil society and experts, also aims to discuss ways to guarantee youth employability.
In this context, she indicated that employability, defined as the potential for adaptability and versatility demonstrated by an individual, must be encouraged by businesses and supported by a smart system of education and professional training.
She also noted that this day will facilitate the identification of the prerequisites of employability culture, responsibilities regarding the anchoring of this culture, and the changes to be made in terms of approaches, methodologies, tools, and partnership relations between businesses, private and public institutions, and stakeholders who guide the learning and employment system.
For his part, Salah Ben Hamad, an academic and international expert in training engineering, stressed the need to involve businesses in the development of training and education programs to better adapt supply to demand in the job market.
He also emphasized the importance of ensuring the training of human resources throughout their professional careers so that their skills are always adapted to the new needs of businesses. Speaking on this occasion, Mahmoud Jaballah, director of a business group, believed that the development of business productivity depends on strengthening its employability.
However, he stressed that businesses today face a major difficulty: finding competent and immediately operational candidates. "Businesses invest a lot of time and money to make new recruits productive immediately," he said, noting that several multinationals invest in Tunisia but do not find qualified workers.
Another business leader mentioned the cumbersome administrative procedures that prevent investors from settling in certain disadvantaged regions to create jobs. Abdeljelil Bedoui, an economist, believes that these are structural problems that have not, until now, been the subject of political will to carry out the necessary reforms to address the issue of employment, employability, and training.
"The absence of sectoral policies has created a discordance between the dynamics of the productive system (based on the employment of skilled and low-cost labor) and the dynamics of the educational system (which creates a growing number of graduates), leading to an imbalance in the job market and maintaining a high unemployment rate," he explained. Abdeljelil Bedoui stressed the need to create a dynamic strategic articulation between the evolution of the education system and the evolution of the productive system.
"It is necessary to rethink the education system by programming dynamic articulation with the productive system," he said. And he added, "it is also necessary to know how to transition to price-competitive ability by giving importance to research, development, and innovation to diversify and improve productivity.
Webmanagercenter.com
Published May 14, 2015.
Posted online May 14, 2015.
