Changing Horizons in Geography Education - HERODOT Network ...

The Position of Geography Graduates in the Labour Marketin Castile and Leon (Spain)Jose Somoza MedinaGeography Department. University of Leon24071 Leon (Spain)e-mail: somoza@unileon.esAbstractUntil a few years ago, people gaining a Geography degree in Spain, as in other Europeancountries, usually had just one job option open to them, teaching in a primary or secondaryschool or at university. Nowadays, Geography students are not keen to be teachers; theyprefer to look for jobs in the professional marketplace. The main problem is that this marketis not familiar with the profession of geographer. Moreover, academic staff at universitiesstill tend to train their pupils how to be secondary-school teachers rather than professionalgeographers.Key words: Professional geographer, Geography studies, employabilityGeography Studies in the Universities of Castile and LeonCastile and Leon is the Autonomous Region of Spain that has the largest area (at94,223 square kilometres) but is also one of the least populous (with a population of2,501,534 in 2005). Its population density is thus 26.5 inhabitants per square kilometre.Furthermore, it is one of the least developed Spanish Autonomous Regions,with a considerable amount of virtually untouched rural landscape. The nine provincesthat form this region have most of their population and economic activitiesconcentrated in the provincial capitals. If the town of Ponferrada, the region’s onlycity of more than 50,000 inhabitants that is not a provincial capital, and a few urbanareas on the edges of the major cites are taken into account as well as the capitalsthemselves, the result is that 50% of the region’s population lives in 17 municipal areascovering only 5% of its territory, while the other half is spread over a further 2,232municipal areas [roughly equivalent to British civil parishes] that together make upone of the most extensive and least inhabited regions in Europe, quite comparable tothe “demographic deserts” in the Scandinavian countries. It is also one of the regionsof Europe with the most elderly population, since 28% of those living there are over60 years old and only 16% under 20.In this region eight universities perform their educational functions, four of thempublic and four private. In the academic year 2004-05 their combined total of registeredstudents was 87,327, of whom 0.4% were registered for Geography courses. This,in a region which, rather as the Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzieonce said when referring to his own country, “has too much geography”.218