Mohamed Loutfi

The Education - Employment Gap

Managing Change

Content:

• Major Influences (inflection points)

• The University’s role in the society

• Suggested policies to manage change

I. Inflection Points1. Information Revolution• Does the education system meet related student

aspirations? Is it flexible enough to be able to use these new technologies?

• What is the type of training that would help students to face innovation and confront the unexpected?

• Will lecturers, in the current educational environment, be able to teach the students the knowledge and competencies that can satisfy the industry / society’s needs?

(the number of unemployed young university graduates is growing at an alarming rate)

2. Demographic change

Are there enough universities (Quality/Quantity) to cover society needs (more than half the people under 25)?

150 universities are needed in Egypt in the next few years. H. Badrawi

I. Inflection Points

3. Cost of Mass Higher Education

• A high quality mass higher education is expensive in both financial and human capital

• Universities are under funded to meet their and their Government’s aspirations.

• e.g. Under/Over-qualified

I. Inflection Points

4. Globalisation• Knowledge, Critical thinking and problem

solving. (IBM – Intelligent Village)

• Proper balance between universities and vocational training, (HND/FD – e.g India)

I. Inflection Points

5. Politics / Religion

• What side should the university take?

• Which jobs to support?

• What culture to support?

I. Inflection Points

II. University Function• Academic View ( A. Barblan)

– Quest for Truth, correspond to the traditional reasoning of science, i.e., to doubt, to imagine and to assimilate

– Quest for Welfare, reinforce the economic strength of the nation

– Quest for Meaning, rearranging the Known to come up with new meanings

– quest for Order, i.e. giving qualifications, leading to a social mobility ladder.

II. University Function• Politician view (Ostergaard) Must be Built on

– Excellence, to be engines of the knowledge economy or of the knowledge society

– Cohesion , questioning the social heritage and routines. People with higher education tend to be less intolerant.

– Enlightenment, affects life long education, an important focus of the new contract societies have to pass with their universities

Both views confirm and highlight the role of the University in Managing Change.

How can this be facilitated?

Are the the solutions experimented in Britain of any use in the Middle East?

if so, how can they be adapted to circumstances in the Eastern

Mediterranean?

Regulated Supply leading to Competition

• Attractiveness To Students – in particular in terms of graduates’ employability

• Targeted Education (greater relevance – for students and society)

III. Managing Change

Student Indexed Funding• to sustain competition, that funding should

follow the student

• student, to be free to choose the University, public or private, depend on the quality of the Education service translating into better employability

III. Managing Change

Autonomy• Universities need to be run as economic

independent sustainable entity that– Recognises the value of their expertise to

the city, region, the community and industry– Mutually beneficial, i.e. to learn from our

partners and improve their skills, knowledge, and integrate with teaching and research

III. Managing Change

Support programmes /

Projects KTP’s

CompanyPartner

DTI

KnowledgeBase

Organisation

Associate

III. Managing Change

Support programmes / Projects KTP’s

“Higher Education Institutions [can] apply their wealth of knowledge and expertise to important business problems” (DTI)

III. Managing Change

Quality evaluationlet us not only look at it as “a fitness of the means

process” (fitness for purposes), let us look at it at a higher level “fitness of the purpose”

e.g. European Quality Improvement System EQUIS concentrates on a balance between high academic quality and the professional relevance provided by close interaction with

the corporate world

III. Managing Change

Competition, autonomy, a student focus, support programmes and a

combination of fitness of and fitness for purpose could combine to revive

educational systems that, for too long, have ignored the link between the quality of their education and the

relevance of their graduates’ career for society.

Thank You