Students have more choices, but the list of ‘dream jobs’ is shorter
CAREER PLANS
STUDENTS entering second level schools next September will face a wider than ever choice of further and higher education, apprenticeship and other training options when they take their Leaving Certificate in five or six years.
Yet while new education, training and work opportunities are opening up, many teenagers’ career aspirations in Ireland and elsewhere are actually narrowing.
This is revealed in a study carried out by the Paris-based think tank the OECD, whose education director, Andreas Schleicher, said: “It is a concern that more young people than before appear to be picking their dream job from a small list of the most popular, traditional occupations, like teachers, lawyers or business managers.”
Overwhelmingly, it is 20th Century, and even 19th Century occupations, that capture the imagination of today’s young people.
The OECD study of 15-year-olds was carried out as part of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 32 countries.
The results show how little career expectations have changed since 2000, an era before social media, 3D printing and the rapid acceleration of the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.
The top 10 career choices for girls worldwide are doctors, teachers, business managers, lawyers, nurses/ midwives, psychologists, designers, vets, police officers and architects.
The top six are the same as reported in 2000, although they are ranked slightly differently.
The top 10 for 15-year-old boys are engineers, business managers, doctors, ICT professionals, sports people, teachers, police officers, motor vehicle mechanics, lawyers and architects.
The study also found that too many teenagers are ignoring — or are unaware of — new types of jobs that are emerging, particularly as a result of digitalisation.
Even when they do aspire to careers outside the traditional choices, too often their dream jobs are those that run the risk of automation in 10 or 15 years.
For instance, more than one in three Irish 15-year-olds (35pc) cited jobs at risk of automation.
Addressing these challenges requires ensuring effective systems of career guidance combined with close engagement with the working world. The report points to the importance of social and family backgrounds in young people’s career choices and aspirations, as well as to the need for clear signals of the requirements of the labour market.
The Irish education and training system is certainly gearing up for this rapidly changing world of work, even if students do not fully appreciate the job changes that are coming. In future, further and higher education colleges will be much more integrated with easier transfer from one to the other. The Leaving Certificate students of five or six years from now will have to dip in and out of education and training all their working lives to catch up with a rapidly changing job environment.
By the time they sit the State exams there will be fewer Institutes of Technology as most will be amalgamated into Technological Universities (TU) and the remaining ones will be anxious to reach that TU status as quickly as possible. Two years ago we had seven universities in Ireland; by the end of this decade the number will have jumped to 13 — the seven traditional unis, five TUs and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, which was upgraded to university status last year.
The current ministers, Joe McHugh and Mary Mitchell O’Connor, are fully backing the move to upgrade the ITs and we can expect their successors, of whatever political persuasion, to be similarly committed.
New apprenticeship areas will also open up and a new further education and training strategy will be finalised. Links between employers and education providers will be strengthened through regional skills fora and ‘clusters’ of colleges.
While the vast majority of those entering the second level school system in September will stay until the Leaving Certificate — hopefully a reformed cycle — not all will, and more opportunities will have to be created for those early leavers so they do not drop through the educational and social protection gaps into a blighted future.
Traineeships and work-based learning options are also likely to be developed further with more opportunities for early school leavers in particular.
Work patterns are obviously changing, education and training provision is undergoing major transformation and guidance provision has to change to equip young people with the information they need to keep up with the changing times.
‘Too many teenagers are ignoring — or are unaware of — new types of jobs that are emerging’