Education system needs reform

IT’S the time of the year when we see smiling faces walking onto stages to receive their certificates after successfully completing a stage in their education.
The same goes for those in tertiary institutions as we come to the end of another academic year.
But alas the path ahead for them is not a clear one. While we applaud their enthusiasm, hard work and long hours of study, we have serious reservations about what the immediate and long-term future holds for some, if not most, of these young people.
The job market is not big and diverse enough to absorb the hundreds of unskilled and semi-skilled young people coming out of these institutions annually.
We see graduates armed with university degrees sitting at home because they cannot find jobs.
Thousands of young people who have the energy and aptitude to be trained and engaged in gainful employment will simply be left idle.
This is an alarming situation that no right-thinking government can afford to ignore.
The situation with the unemployed youths means the country is not benefiting from the combined energy and knowledge of a significant portion of the population.
It could very well be a major contributor to national development growth.
Trade unionist John Paska says the active working population between ages 18 and 65 is about six million. But of that number, only 10 per cent or 60,000 are in the formal sector. This means that the tax base is narrow.
It means that only a small fraction of the population in the formal sector is paying taxes for the government services for the population of the country which is approaching, or has reached, 10 million.
The fact remains that a large chunk of the population of able young men and women are not captured in the State’s formal tax net.
It makes very little sense if the Government is prepared to spend millions of kina on free or subsidised education without guaranteeing itself a reasonable return on its investment.
How? Simply by ensuring that those young people it so willingly educate are engaged in some form of employment or self-employment to pay their dues in taxes rather than continuing to be burden to parents and other benefactors.
For that to happen, we need to rethink and overhaul the education system in its present form.
Yes, there has been a number of reforms in the education department. But such reforms have been on the concept of academic education geared mainly to gaining employment.
Alternative education systems aimed at promoting entrepreneurship at secondary or even primary school level would perhaps better prepare young people to help themselves rather than merely to seek employment when opportunities are as limited as they are at present.
We have heard politicians, economist or other commentators say that a country’s most valuable resources are its people.
Yet we don’t treat our people, especially the young ones, seriously.
Imagine what difference it would make if a bigger fraction of the thousands of young people we are graduating annually are absorbed into the job market or provided an enabling environment to put their business creativity and courage to the test.
That can only happen if there is a change in the education system to train people to be business-minded and not merely as would-be employees.