The effort that the Government has made in granting free university education to the students of the lowest strata is commendable.
(Read: Generational change)
However, it is necessary to balance this effort with the investment that is being made in vocational education, since it is imperative to create jobs for the immense mass of young unemployed that Colombia has. Time is short.
(Read: Contrasts)
The biggest difference that vocational education has with university education is that the former seeks to provide the preparation to create competencies in specific and practical jobs, while university education primarily seeks to increase knowledge, transmit theory and stimulate reasoning.
(Read: How many lost Einsteins)
Vocational education would allow to prepare in addition to assistants of mechanics, plumbing, electricity and industrial workers, etc; technicians in data feeding for Big Data, assistants in modeling in Artificial Intelligence and others similar while there are careers where a university education is essential.
The youth employment subsidy that the Government has regulated must be combined with an awareness of the need to train technicians and operators. These, in a supervised work process, will be able to learn a specific task, practice it and go, progressively -between practice and learning- climbing in training.
A concerted vocational education program should seek to prepare people with skills that can be implemented immediately. Skills that give the individual the possibility of working in the line of work they have chosen and mark a clear path of progress in their career.
It is necessary to design a continuous study plan that allows the workforce to adapt to changes in the demand for specific skills.
Define the curricula in coordination with employers who, previously expressing their needs, assume the necessary commitments to contribute in the fight to quickly lower the level of unemployment.
The urgency of creating jobs immediately requires a concerted effort from the private sector and the Sena, an entity that, in my opinion, is being underutilized, despite having an excellent track record of results. There are role models, as I have mentioned in this column on past occasions.
In Germany, the respect that a trained technician arouses is no less than that of a university student and this has been the basis for the productivity of that economy. Australia has also been able to adapt the German model to its own requirements.
There is no reason why Colombia cannot, as a national purpose, establish a shock program that, with the support of businessmen, governments and academia itself, can reduce the unemployment problem, which is undoubtedly the biggest concern for the population. young people right now.
I propose this crash program as a consequence of the obvious disconnect between the education they require, both the old and the new economics, and the professions from which college promotions are currently graduating.
Vocational education, complemented by compulsory social service, would be the pillars on which a more dynamic economy can be built, also stimulating social mobility.
Salomon Kassin
Investment banker
[email protected]
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