Innovative Secondary Education For Skills Enhancement

Figure 6: Current and expected skills in Thailand in 2011
Unskilled
Worker
Semiskilled
Worker
Skilled
Worker
Professional
Expert
1
5
1
5
1
5
1
5
1
5
4
4
4
4
4
6
3
2
2
6
3
2
2
6
3
2
2
6
3
2
2
6
3
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
5
3
5
3
5
3
5
3
5
3
4
4
4
4
4
Current
Expected
1. Analytical Skill
2. Computer Skill
3. Foreign Language Skill
4. Cooperative Skill or Teamwork Skill
5. Technical Skill
6. Management Skill
Source: Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labor Database
In Cambodia, survey data reveal that only 13 percent
of employers believe graduates have all or most of the
skills needed for the labor market. Particularly missing are
appropriate attitudes to work among unskilled workers,
problem-solving skills among skilled workers, and analytical
skills among professionals. These findings have been
confirmed by three separate surveys by different institutions
in 2009, 2009, and 2010. The mismatch is caused
largely by the limited capacity of the secondary education
system to provide the needed skills at an adequate level of
quality and relevant to employers’ needs.
Employers in Vietnam are more concerned with some
skills than with others. Highest on their list are information
skills (particularly information interpretation and
communication and computer processing of information),
resource-related skills (such as money and time
management), and interpersonal skills (like teamwork and
negotiation). Vietnamese employers seem less interested
in leadership skills than those in other Southeast Asian
countries. Formal education is expected to provide many
of these skills, although its role may vary depending on
the particular skill. Employers’ expectations for information
skills are largely met, but those for resource-related
and interpersonal skills are rarely so, and these are considered
particularly weak areas.
Other Regions 9
A literature review of four other regions outside Africa
and Asia shows that employers are increasingly looking
for non-cognitive skills in additional to cognitive and
technical ones. These regions are Latin America, Eastern
Europe and Central Asia, the Middle East and North
Africa, and OECD Europe and North America. In all four,
corporations cite behavioral skills such as teamwork,
communication, and problem solving as key for work in
today’s economies. Yet they also perceive that these are
the skills that are not taught in school.
Despite youth unemployment in Latin America of 13 percent,
nearly half of companies surveyed reported difficulty
in finding qualified candidates (Inter-American Development
Bank 2012). The Business Environment and Enterprise
Performance Survey shows that employers believe
workers’ education and skills are one of the top constraints
to growth in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia
region (Sondergard and Murthi 2012). The skills taught
in the Middle East and North Africa are not the ones that
employers want (Bloomberg Businessweek 2011); employers
in this region are looking for technical and vocational
skills that are in inadequate supply (UNDP 2009). The
increasing focus of OECD countries on 21st-century skills
was discussed in “Background.”
9 See Jayaram (2012).
Skills for Employability in Africa and Asia 17