Luis Pastor, PhD in Journalism from the Ramón Llul University (URL), proposes that universities implement a qualification of skills that demonstrates everything that the professional is capable of doing. He points out that universities are not training to respond to the job market.
What conclusions emerged from the international meeting on higher education?
The III International Forum on Higher Education. Organized by the Franz Tamayo University (Unifranz) and Virtual Educa, it was a space to talk about higher education, the challenges and the changes after the pandemic.
In addition, postgraduate training at the Latin American level. It was exposed on the professionals that form the universities and those that the labor market needs. We have seen that student learning is still uneven.
Are universities training students for the job market?
There is the problem that training takes so long that when students finish their study plan, the market requires other skills.
It is necessary to make constant changes in the subjects, for that the support of the governments is required, to work with them, and with the employers, to listen to the skills that are needed in the jobs.
After the experience of virtual classes in a pandemic, how should classes continue in universities?
We all want things to go back to the way they were before the coronavirus pandemic, but it won’t.
The pandemic accelerated a process that had to come, which is the option of having another training alternative.
Universities must now offer hybrid programs, combining virtual classes with practical face-to-face sessions, that allow students to develop their knowledge and put it into practice.
Classes should be convened to solve exercises or do practical, more interactive classes, because it is not motivating to ask students to attend to lock themselves in a room where a man is reading some slides, without any digital features.
Digitization is the transformation of a society to new production processes.
What should be done to improve?
There are several aspects. One is the structure of the State, which often creates a slow process for approving careers. So, when a curriculum is approved, it takes so long that the labor market already requires other training.
Another aspect is the leadership, which sometimes has very conventional ideas, which does not risk changes or innovations.
They should also offer intermediate qualifications, that is to say, that the student does not have to wait three or five years to obtain his title and say to the companies: “I already know something”.
It is necessary that they can receive titles after finishing advancing a block of subjects, so they can exercise and also continue their training.
And the work with teachers? Do they need to be renewed every so often?
Teachers should not be left alone, they should be accompanied in the teaching process.
They must be helped to be prepared to respond to the new generations, to impart knowledge to them in the way they are capable of learning.
In Bolivia, most careers last five years. What is the international trend?
On an international scale, the trend is to reduce the years of study, as well as for universities to teach shorter courses, which support continuous training.
There are experiences of students who graduate with excellence or study various careers, but do not work. What is recommended to students so that this does not happen to them?
Sometimes we have graduate students with academic excellence, who have high scores, but if they are presented to companies this does not mean anything, these are just numbers inside outside the university. Quantitative qualifications have value in the academic field, but not in the labor market.
Companies are interested in the results in the field of performance, knowing what the professional can do, what skills he managed to develop, how he will contribute to the development of the company. Therefore, it is necessary that universities, in addition to quantitative qualifications, report on what that person is capable of doing.
All students leave the university with similar knowledge, all must have learned the necessary basics to graduate. The important thing is not to know the information they have, but the skills they managed to develop.
