Redesign courses for the unemployed, says BRIAN MOONEY

DO YOU KNOW that 80 million job opportunities are expected to arise in the next decade? So says the European Commission.

Among these, seven million will be new and most will require a more highly skilled workforce. These figures are contained in the commission's strategy document New Skills for New Jobs: Action Now. It stresses the need to incentivise all workers to upgrade their skills to better link education, training and work, to develop the right mix of skills and anticipate future skills needs.

The document says the employment rate in the EU for those with high skill levels is 84 per cent; medium skill levels 71 per cent; and low skill levels 48 per cent. It also says that those with low qualifications are much less likely to upgrade their skills and follow lifelong learning.

Meanwhile, companies that train their staff are much less likely to go out of business and education systems which provide adequate skills for all could increase GDP by up to 10 per cent in the long term.

The report calls for action in four areas: better incentives for employers and individuals to up-skill; make training institutions more innovative and responsive to learners’ and employers’ needs; offer a better mix of skills more suited to labour market needs; and anticipate future skill needs.

How should our education and training services take on board these recommendations? What should FÁS do?

The commission recommends that when a person becomes unemployed they should be provided (in the first weeks) with intensive counselling, training and job search skills. But the quality of support recommended by Brussels is not available in our public employment services.

Secondly, the commission states that the participation of job seekers in programmes which do not lead to a job is as wasteful as long-term unemployment itself. How many thousands of unemployed people have done numerous FÁS courses over many years which have not substantially increased their capacity for secure employment?

The commission says employment services, like FÁS, should redesign their training schemes to market needs and, in their courses, stimulate entrepreneurship.

These ideas from Brussels require huge changes within how we deliver our public employment services. But, they also foreshadow radical changes in the nature of our second and third-level curriculum, if we are to give our students the skills required to compete successfully for employment in the highly competitive international market.