Education is the key to Human Capital creation. In a world where the ability to attract talent is vital for every country, Latin America has a great opportunity.  

By Martín Padulla

The world of labour has clearly changed and there is evidence of disconnections between educative systems and labour markets.

Our societies, deeply influenced by migratory waves, were developed through two main pillars that became core values: the culture of work and the culture of education. Education and work are two sides of the same coin.

This region witnessed the emergence of innovative intellectuals who gave thought to education back in the 1850’s, with the idea of transforming it into an instrument that would grant society with the best resources for work and social development. Several essays, marked by ideological biases, have prevailed over the criteria established by these intellectuals, and the innovative ideas they proposed were questioned on many occasions, and even ignored. The paths followed were incorrect, and the situation that resulted from those experiments is not the best.

The world today needs a stronger bet than the one of the past. New skills are needed to produce more and better. The sought-after opportunity equality demands real demonstrations of a strong will of effort and improvement. Investment on education must be both pertinent (adjusted to the demand) and effective. Though several of our countries have increased their investment on education, they have not always done it the best way possible. In fact, there are countries in the region that have unrestricted access to public universities and where around 75% of students do not graduate. We are talking about young people who study for free, who add no value and who generate costs that society pays for. In addition, they may study any degree, no matter the sort of skills the country needs. Therefore, we are facing a situation in which, what aims to be an inclusive model, results on an exclusive model that conceals a profound injustice.

Consequently, we end up with a situation where, on the one hand we have young professionals who have types of knowledge that are saturated in the labour market and, on the other hand, there is shortage of graduates in disciplines that assure 100% of labour insertion. I am talking about disciplines that guarantee the entry to the labour market even if the number of graduates would double the current number. An incomprehensible paradox.

We are also aware that there are countries, such as South Korea that, in a 30 years period and by working on their citizens skills, went from being poor to being wealthy. Using extremely professional planning, they achieved a training system based on demand. Additionally, they strongly encouraged innovation. Today, with 50 million inhabitants, Korea produces ten times the amount of inventions Latin America does, even though the later has 600 million citizens. And these innovations produce lots of work. Another interesting fact is that Korea has over 71.000 university students attending the most important universities in the United States, while our entire region does not even have half that number of students attending US universities.

Clearly, an adequate revision of reality is urgent. Such reality has new ways of working, with multi-tasking workers, crowdsourcing, fab-lab, outsourcing, co-working, remote working, mobility, flexibility, transitions and millions of youngsters pretending to enter the labour market every year.

What is the conception of work that is prevailing in Latin America? At certain times, the equation would seem to be the following: regulatory frames from the mid 20^th century, education models from the beginning of the 20^th century, with minor changes and updates, and jobs or requirements of skills from the 21^st century.

It is necessary to delve on the technical debate, to insist on social dialog, to summon the best and to work on hard data. We must create quality education and Decent Work opportunities for all our youngsters

We must encourage innovation and creativity as these generate around 40% of the entire economic growth. We have to create a technical-productive training system, based on demand, in order to improve workers and entrepreneurs’ skills, facilitating different forms of hiring and start-up entrepreneurships.

The commodities party seems to have come to an end. Raw material prices are falling, 3D printers will soon be among us, changing the ways in which we produce forever. To even consider improving productivity based on cheap workforce or devaluated currency exchange is an unforgivable mistake, which would also be recurrent.

We face a major opportunity: if we are capable of articulating public-private policies, linking public and private employment agencies in order to work on transitions professionally, stimulating innovation, educating in order to generate more and better innovators, and to work towards employability -the gap between offered and demanded skills-, our growth shall be inclusive and sustainable.

The time has come to stop wasting energies and resources. We can educate a generation of Latin-Americans who are competent and productive. The tools are within reach.

About Martin Padulla

Managing Director of staffingamericalatina. Martin Padulla is Sociologist (USAL), MBA (UCA) and labour markets expert. He published “Flexible Work in South America” and “Regulatory framework for private employment agencies in Latin America” two books about the new realities of work in Latin America.

mpadulla@staffingamericalatina.com

About staffingamericalatina

It is the unique independent digital media specialized in Latin American´s labour markets.

Produce and spread contents, researches and developments about issues such us Employability, Youth Employment, Training for Employment, Decent Work, Private Employment Agencies, Active policies for employment, Teleworking, Public and private actions for the creation of decent work, Green Jobs and Corporate Social Responsibility.

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