RECENTLY, I had a chance meeting with a lady who occupies a leadership position in a well-known MNC in Pakistan. The dearth of talent in our country was the subject of conversation. Apparently, they haven’t been able to find the appropriate skill set for the 115 jobs available at the company.

According to International Trade Association statistics, we have some 500,000 students enrolled in technical and vocational education, and another 760,000 in degree-awarding colleges and 1.96 million in universities every year. Almost 4,000 PhDs were produced over the last decade. Thousands of private sector jobs are available for graduates each year and thousands of PhD-holding faculty that teach these students. Yet, there is a vacuum in the job market that cannot be filled. Our NGOs have traditionally filled the gap where the economy is unable to be supported by skilled labour that could be earning for themselves.

Those corporations that have recourse to funds have recently begun initiating learning and development programmes to bring young trainees up to speed with job requirements. Yet, performance indicators show that many are still unable to fulfil job requirements, resulting in a high turnover for the hiring companies.

In a world where channels of knowledge are not restricted to paid in-person training, the fact that this problem persists in Pakistan should ring more than a few alarm bells. Students who have access to online training, a wealth of research at the tip of their fingers and learning and development programmes at their jobs still fail at their jobs. A certain level of understanding, structured thinking processes and motivation is required to respond to training and successfully apply it.

There is a gap in the job market that cannot be filled.

This is a wake-up call for our higher education system that has failed to deliver, having worked with outdated curricula and teaching methods for too long. The fact that there is little synergy between our higher education system and the needs of industry is a problem that cannot go away on its own. In the years to come, it can only get worse as technology evolves at the dizzying level that we have seen in recent years.

Our IT graduates, for example, are far removed from the expertise that is now demanded in international markets. In Dubai, alone, the demand for IT professionals is approximately 4,000 and yet our IT graduates cannot fulfill the stated job requirements. In the past decades, the Middle East was the largest importer of Pakistani talent. According to International Labour Organisation statistics, 11 million Pakistanis are employed in the GCC countries, out of which 76 per cent are in unskilled, blue-collar jobs.

It would be safe to assume we have the brains but not the talent; we have the numbers but not the skill. It is no wonder we tend to lap up those professionals who have had some education or experience abroad. They bring with them not only a fresh perspective, but also a range of productive ideas that keeps the wheel churning. For those looking to fly the nest in search of em­­ployment opportunities abroad, self-learning has become critical in an environment that is lagging behind global developments.

It would be an understatement to say there is a lot to learn. Besides the skills required for day-to-day tasks, there are many things such as a strong work ethic, people management, and strategic thinking — aspects of professional development that are imbibed from the environment and learnt by mirroring teachers, leaders and mentors. One way to start bridging the skills gap is to encourage collaboration between industry professionals and higher education faculty. Working backwards from the needs of the industry, and intentionally teaching those skills would be a starting point. For example, the Harvard Business School transformed business education globally with the introduction of the case study method. These were a range of simple and complex real-life business problems that introduced university students to problem-solving methods, and quickly got adopted by corporations around the world as a testing method before the interviewing stage to cherry-pick skilled candidates.

Some companies now have taken the reins of skill development by offering in-house programmes that require high levels of investment in human capital. Our relatively young working population is hungry for professional training and have access to mostly outdated programmes. This young population also emerges from outdated school curricula that has left them ill-prepared for the reading, thinking and technological skills required to receive and process information coming their way. The road ahead may be long, but the steps forward need to be carved today.

The writer is an author, teacher, educator and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK. The views expressed are her own and do not reflect those of her employer.
neda.mulji@gmail.com
X: @nedamulji

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2023