Connecting for the future

1. Connecting for the future Team HEARTS Romania Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

2. Experience and discover Problem Tree Analysis Youth unemployment = the age group between 15 and 30 years old not working for a specific period of time, but willing to and being actively searching for work Team Hearts

3. Experience and discover • Status-quo: aprox. 5 065 000 young people between 15-30 years old (source: Romanian National Institute of Statistics, 2012) • Problem: 25% of Romanian youth is unemployed: • regional: North-West part, 20.9% • gender: equal distribution of unemployed males and females • long term unemployment: 40% • (source: Eurofound, NEETs- Young people not in employment, education or training 2012) • Causes: • 1. During the communist period, there was high job security and standardized wages thus pursuing a degree wasn’t a prerequisite for obtaining a well paid job. After 1989, the misunderstanding of the capitalist values lead people to believe that the only way to obtain a secure job would be to attend university, regardless of the specialization. • In order to gain the public sympathy, the ministers gave autonomy to universities and most of them decided not to require an admission exam and to raise the number of places at an accessible tuition fee. • Due to the lenient standards a large number of graduates entered the market in search for a job with false expectations. Team Hearts

4. Experience and discover • 2. Lack of practical skills provided by the educational system caused by inefficient communication between the actors involved in the educate-employ process, thus: • The educational curricula are not designed in order to prepare future graduates with both practical and theoretical skills needed on the market. • Consequently, graduates are not equipped with the abilities required by employers and are unable to find a job in order to gain work experience. This leads to delayed career prospects, making it even more difficult to find employment. • Lack of work experience among NEETs: 15-19 years: 73% • 20-24 years: 46% • 25-30 years: 62% (source: Eurofound, 2012) • these causes combined lead to the demolition of vocational schools in 2009 which resulted in the lack of skilled workers even though there is an increasing need for them • One of the main effects is a brain drain of graduates who go abroad for studies or searching for a job. According to a Romanian magazine, 32.2% of people aged between 18 and 35 years want to leave the country. Team Hearts

5. Youth unemployment Our vision provide the chance for open discussions between employers, future employees and the educators in order to improve the educational system and create job opportunities Team Hearts

6. Short-term solutions • admission exam at universities • higher standards of examination (only two possibilities to take an exam) • partnerships between vocational schools/universities and companies in the field: • shadowing activities • internships • the existence of a career center in each vocational school/university with responsible teachers and professors to easy the access of their students to the activities (similar to the Erasmus programme which has a separate coordinator) Team Hearts

7. Medium-term solutions • reinforcing the vocational schools in Romania in response to the high demand of skilled workers • those interested in working in fields such as plumbing, constructions, transportation services, food industry, etc. should be able to receive training directly from the hiring companies, gaining both a certificate and experience • actively promote fields that have a deficit of specialists, such as IT, engineering, sales and hotel industry • companies based in/having subsidiaries in Romania could offer scolarships for those interested in studying abroad, under the condition of returning in Romania to work for the company, this way increasing the quality of our specialists, reducing the unemployment rate and the brain drain Team Hearts

8. Long-term solutions • Highscool level: • organizing career days • having a career advisor to guide pupils and apply and interpret personality and career tests • improving the curricula by having a better selection of courses according to the profile • taking into account the feedback from pupils • 2. University level: • designing courses in order to encourage critical thinking • include practical activities such as case studies, real world examples etc. • higher admission and examination standards, for example making informal education (volunteering, trainings, internships) part of the criteria for admission at university Team Hearts

9. Planned outcomes • The proposed solutions may be implemented in maximum two years. • The first positive changes seen after: • short-term solutions <3 years • medium-term solutions <7 years • long-term solutions >7 years • Although most of the solutions are designed in order to prevent future high unemployment rate and its side effects, offering the possiblity of proper training and certification directly at companies is a solution for those already in unemployment. This would be particularly usefull since the domains with the highest deficit of trained personnel (45% in Romania in 2012 according to Manpower studies) are those most suitable for this programme, for example: skilled workers, drivers, sale representatives. Team Hearts