Basic eight. ​​How a high-quality vocational education can solve the shortage of personnel for the reconstruction of the country

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Its development is directly related to the needs of modern business.

Cooperation between trade unions and enterprises can become an effective tool for filling the personnel shortage and stimulating innovative development of the country.

In fact, what is happening now in the labor market with the perspective of the next few decades is a completely reversed game that is incredibly pleasant to watch and participate in.

Next, we will analyze in eight points why the quality of vocational education directly affects the situation inside the warring country.

Vocational education can play the role of a catalyst for economic growth

How graduates of professional technical schools bring victory closer

The first and most important thing is to secure the front. This is the work of a large number of enterprises.

Currently, Ukroboronprom has thousands of vacancies, and most of them are working professions. We need turners, millers, welders, electricians and a lot of other specialists.

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The state has invested tens of billions of hryvnias in the domestic defense-industrial complex, and in the future they will turn into hundreds. However, the growth of the industry also requires an expansion of the workforce, and in the conditions of a shortage of skilled labor, this is not easy to do. These people do not come from thin air.

By modernizing the content of education, it is important to give students the opportunity to receive a military component as well: an electrician can be able to assemble and repair drones, and an agricultural machinery mechanic can repair not only a tractor, but also a tank if necessary. Not to mention how many more drivers and cooks are needed for the Armed Forces. And each new worker brings our victory closer.

The Ministry of Education and Science closely cooperates with the enterprises of Ukroboronprom. Students are now doing internships at companies and are often employed after graduation. Together with the concern, we prepared changes to the list of professions of national importance, which next year will receive greater support from the state in the form of new equipment for practical training.

And who will rebuild the country?

In the spring of this year, the head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, Ruslan Kravchenko, reported that more than 28,000 objects were destroyed in Kyiv Oblast alone due to Russian aggression. Rebuilding schools, hospitals, houses and entire cities is one of the biggest tasks after victory. Builders have always said that it is the lack of quantity and quality of workers that is the biggest obstacle to rapid development.

Unfortunately, many talented specialists went abroad even before the full-scale invasion, but we want Ukrainians and Ukrainian companies to get the most during the recovery phase of Ukraine. And for this, it is necessary to train thousands of builders of various professions, ready to work according to European standards, with modern equipment, quickly and efficiently.

At the same time, representatives of the construction industry have a high potential for salary increases. According to OLX Robot, over the past year, the salary of workers in the field has increased by 27% and ranges from UAH 15,000 to UAH 50,000, depending on the job profile.

Students are now doing internships at companies and are often employed after graduation

Professional technologies for business and economy

Why do all EU countries so persistently promote professional technology? Even despite the fact that this education is always much more expensive than school education, and sometimes even higher. Because they have some experience and think more practically.

Thus, in Switzerland, about 70% of 9th grade graduates choose professional education. This happens because this is what the labor market actually looks like.

According to OLX Robot, the highest payment for services on the market is currently offered to representatives of “blue-collar” professions. Among them, there are some examples of vacancies where the greatest salary growth can be expected in the near future. There are electricians and electrical technicians, drivers for the logistics sector, mechanics and technical workers, construction workers. These are all graduates of vocational schools.

The question also comes to mind, why “higher institutions” (ZVO – institutions of higher education) are not able to close this problem? Everything is simple.

“Higher schools” do not train painters, plasterers, tractor drivers, locksmiths, turners, machine operators, cooks, confectioners, bakers, and several hundred other professions. These people make up the lion’s share of the labor market.

Many professions where people with higher education usually work in Ukraine will not actually need it. We spend a lot of money and, even more, years of our lives to learn something that we never use. Adults who already have a full higher education receive a profession at courses and then go to work in a specialty that is really in demand.

Source: MES

A modern professional college should work closely with business.

Its students do internships with partners and are easily employed, as they get first-hand work experience and real practical skills to add to their CV before graduation.

Disinterested learner = unmotivated worker

Not only the result is important, but also the learning process itself. I often hear from children in the 9th grade that they are already a little disgusted with studying subjects that are not interesting to them. Of course, there are those who like to study at school. But we all know that one and the same approach won’t work for everyone. We learn differently, at different speeds, with our own characteristics. Not everyone likes the same teacher or class.

Vocational education is an “alternative school”. Professions are taught here, and this involves a lot of practice. Here you can work with your hands. Here it becomes clear why to learn this, and how to apply your knowledge and skills later. And interest is a key factor in effective learning.

We need to add more entrepreneurship, more project approach, problem-based learning, more modern design and technology courses. But it is quite clear already: communicating with children in vocational schools, they like it here much more than at school. The same is observed in other countries.

Read also: Students of universities and vocational technical schools will be able to undergo internship at “Ukroboronprom”

Vocational education about stability

A favorite saying of parents all over the country is that “in order to earn more, you need to get a higher education.” However, the salaries of locksmiths, turners, and tractor drivers, which are listed in vacancies on job aggregator sites, average 15,000 hryvnias. For better understanding of the context, as of the beginning of 2022, the average salary in Ukraine was 14 thousand hryvnias. Most of the job advertisements for graduates of professional technical schools offer the following average salary:

• welder – 17.5 thousand hryvnias;
• carpenter – 16.5 thousand hryvnias;
• tailor – 15 thousand hryvnias;
• tractor driver – 16 thousand hryvnias;
• turner – 16.5 thousand hryvnias;
• baker – 14.5 thousand hryvnias;
• locksmith – 21 thousand hryvnias.

Another advantage of graduates of professional technical schools is that they quickly master the practical component and take the first steps in the profession, usually already in the second year. That is, at the stage of graduation from professional engineering, these people already have work experience and a good income.

For example, a plumber on the site “Kabanchyk” in Kyiv receives for his work from 200 hryvnias per hour, that is, if he works full time, he can earn more than 1.5 thousand hryvnias per day.

It is also important to understand that most working professions allow you to earn more by opening your own business. To do this, it is necessary to add entrepreneurship skills to professional skills, which, by the way, are now taught in career centers at vocational schools. That is, you can open your own restaurant, organize catering, repair cars in your own service station or create a carpentry workshop and make furniture to order.

If you are hardworking, you don’t need to go to make money in conditional Poland or Portugal.

Vocational education is an “alternative school”. Professions are taught here, and this involves a lot of practice

Integration of veterans and employment of internally displaced persons

Vocational education institutions should not only be for primary education. They should also become a basis for retraining adults, because changes in life contribute to changes in our interests and often our profession.

Thus, as of August 1, 2023, information on war veterans in the number of 908,832 persons was entered into the Unified State Register of War Veterans (USWRVV). What should these people do today? And in five years?

Millions more people lost their homes and moved to a new city. Many of them need new jobs, but often they will also need new skills. The MES team has already started several educational projects for adults with our international partners:

• The EdUP project, supported by the Swiss government, is aimed at the development of construction professions in 28 vocational education institutions;
• The EU Skills4Recovery project, implemented by GIZ, is aimed at developing new training programs for adults in the fields of logistics, agriculture, construction and energy.

The government has already made it possible for various categories of citizens to receive a study voucher from the State Employment Service. And thousands are already choosing short programs in vocational education.

What do vocational schools need to integrate veterans, internally displaced persons and other adult categories of people: introduce short-term programs, partnerships with businesses, recognition of qualifications acquired informally, including during war.

Opportunities that will not be taken away

We are surrounded by many processes that involve people, whose work is almost impossible to automate or replace with artificial intelligence. From the study of the Economist magazine, we saw that the last to be automated will be precisely the labor professions – plumbers, cooks, bricklayers, construction workers, etc.

Even where some specific tasks can be automated, the integration of artificial intelligence can lead to the creation of new opportunities for technical workers, helping them to use their skills more effectively in the execution of jobs.

Proftech is the road to self-realization

What do you tell a child if he comes with a desire to become a chef? Would you advise her to go to vocational school? And that’s exactly how it should be. Because children can dream of repairing cars and then opening their own car service. They can dream of sewing clothes, working in the fields, going all the way from working at a machine to the director of a large factory, or, again, baking bread, a wedding cake, or opening a bakery. Modern vocational and technical education is necessary for the realization of such dreams of our children.

In fact, there are many professions that can be obtained only in vocational and technical education institutions – for example, a cook, welder, jeweler or electrician. And any of them can become someone’s dream job. That is, students who want to get such professions do not even have the choice of “entering a university or professional technical school”, because universities, banally, do not train to become cooks.

Another reason to choose professional engineering is the opportunity to quickly become independent and independent from parents, earn your first money and start a career not after 4 years of bachelor’s degree and 2 master’s degrees, but here and now.

You can spend a lot of time talking about the youth who have to move this country, and you can give them the opportunity to actually do it today.

Dmytro Zavgorodnyi, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, specially for UP. Life

All photos: MON