The career aspirations of students across the world are misaligned with the current state of the education sector and market demand.
A new OECD report found one in five students, and one in three socially disadvantaged students, expect to go into jobs that require at least a bachelor’s degree, but do not expect to go to university.
OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation report found a significant misalignment of teenagers’ career expectations and the market.
Secretary-General Cormann said the study looked at 690,000 teenagers in 81 countries and also found social background played a bigger role in determining a student’s educational ambition than academic ability.
He said on average across OECD countries, low-performing students with socio-economically advantaged backgrounds were more likely to expect to complete university education than high performing students from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds.
“The report also found that a gender gap remains in students’ aspirations to work in sectors of strategic importance which are experiencing skills shortages, such as information technology and healthcare, despite big shifts in the job market and economic needs.”
Secretary-General Cormann said despite evidence that teenage career development and planning was strongly linked with better employment outcomes in adulthood, too many students were ill-equipped for their next steps.
“By the age of 15, 39 percent of students are unclear about their career expectations, double the proportion from less than a decade ago.”
Secretary-General Cormann said one in three students also said that school had not taught them things which could be useful in a job.
“Mismatches in students’ aspirations and plans, coupled with skills shortages in our economies, call for new policies to support better career preparation.
“More efforts are needed to help young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, get the career guidance they need to understand the options open to them.”
Read the full report: The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation.
