Are Norwegian Universities Preparing Students For A Changing Labour Market?

By Dirk Van Damme 
Head of the Skills Beyond School Division,  Directorate for Education together with Skills

Photo credit: Mikael Kristenson/Unsplash

In many countries, in that location are increasing concerns nearly the gap betwixt the qualifications together with skills that universities deliver, together with those that the labour marketplace demands. Employers are becoming specially song nearly this, claiming that they cannot discovery graduates alongside the skills sets they need. And every bit globalisation together with digitalisation lead house to transform economies, nosotros tin aspect to encounter profound changes inwards the skills that employers demand inwards the future. In other words, the skills shortages of today mightiness non live on the same every bit those of tomorrow.

Ensuring that the furnish of skills to a greater extent than or less matches demand – both today together with tomorrow – is no slowly undertaking. Higher instruction has the really hard task of equipping students alongside generic together with domain-specific noesis together with skills that terminal for a lifetime. This is almost impossible. Simplistic answers volition non do, together with past times attempts at fine-grained “manpower planning” (i.e., estimating the demand for specific qualifications inwards the futurity together with conditioning entry into studies accordingly) stimulate got oftentimes ended inwards failure. People oftentimes respond to dissimilar opportunities or sense life-events that alter the course of study of their professional person paths, sometimes past times taking jobs that are non related to their study. And jobs demand oftentimes changes significantly, fifty-fifty inside the 4 or 5 years that the study requires.

Consequently, higher instruction institutions inwards Kingdom of Norway together with other countries appear to accept a really relaxed mental attitude to labour marketplace demands, together with tend to hold that giving students the pick to enrol inwards a given programme of study is even hence the best guarantee of motivation together with success. They aspect graduates to live on able to care alongside alter together with dubiousness throughout their lifetimes, whatever their plain of study. In these countries, liberty of pick remains an of import social value – precisely is this approach sufficient.

Today, nosotros published Higher Education inwards Norway: Labour Market Relevance together with Outcomes, a review of the Norwegian system’s capacity to link skills demand together with supply. In many aspects, the province of affairs inwards Kingdom of Norway is really positive. Indeed, high graduate work rates together with relatively high net inwards a booming economic scheme advise that in that location are almost no problems to worry about. But high work rates together with a compressed wage structure, inwards which it is hard to mensurate returns on investment, tin enshroud existent problems. Good economical fortune tin easily Pb to complacency, whereas it should live on seen every bit an chance to laid upwards for the future. And the Norwegian authorities knows that its futurity globe volition live on different: less subject on oil, to a greater extent than subject on technology scientific discipline together with to a greater extent than opened upwards to the world. Are the skills that academy graduates accomplish the correct ones to laid upwards the province for this transition?

The nautical chart to a higher house displays the literacy, numeracy together with problem-solving proficiency of Norwegian higher instruction graduates across a issue of fields of study, every bit measured inwards the OECD Survey of Adult Skills inwards 2012. It indicates that in that location are of import differences inwards graduates’ skills across dissimilar fields of study together with the variation inwards these foundation skills is high. Yet these differences are non mirrored inwards labour marketplace success. Health, welfare together with instruction professionals appear to stimulate got relatively depression levels of foundation skills, precisely they taste some of the best work rates together with most stable net of all graduates, thank you lot to the continuous demand for skilled labour inwards their respective sectors. In contrast, graduates from the arts together with the humanities stimulate got relatively high science levels, precisely relatively weak labour marketplace outcomes. Compared to graduates inwards other fields of study, arts together with humanities graduates stimulate got a harder fourth dimension finding jobs that brand amount utilization of the noesis together with skills they developed inwards higher education.

Our study suggests diverse measures together with strategies to strengthen labour marketplace relevance together with outcomes of higher instruction inwards Norway: for example, past times to a greater extent than straight connecting studies to the globe of work, strengthening cooperation betwixt institutions together with social partners, or improving labour marketplace information together with career guidance systems. But a to a greater extent than profound reflection is needed to ensure that the country’s higher instruction organisation delivers the skills together with qualifications needed inwards the economic scheme together with guild of the future. Norwegian universities even hence house a really high value on domain- together with discipline-specific knowledge. But Norwegian graduates volition demand much deeper together with broader transversal skills (cognitive, non-cognitive, social together with emotional) to bargain alongside dubiousness together with change, together with to perform futurity jobs.

Today, in that location is no clear consensus persuasion nearly the purpose of higher instruction inwards developing the skills exterior the traditional discipline-specific ones. But it is clear that universities, governments together with social partners inwards Kingdom of Norway stimulate got a shared responsibleness to actively ameliorate the labour marketplace relevance of higher education.


Read more:
Higher Education inwards Norway: Labour Market Relevance together with Outcomes