The 14th annual Global Development Network Conference (GDN) with the theme “Inequality, Social Protection and Inclusive Growth” was held last month at the Asian Development Bank Headquarters in Manila. It was the first time for a Southeast Asian country to host such event.
There are many issues surrounding social protection as an aftermath of the global financial crisis and also in growing inequality among economies, varying across countries and regions. These pose as an emerging concern in terms of social benefits to be provided as an instrument to protect people, in offering them employment, and empowering them to support productivity. Thus, the conference aimed to emphasize the importance of social development policies and social protection systems to reduce inequality towards sustainable and long-term inclusive growth. About 400 researchers from different parts of the world attended the conference.
I was one such lucky person to be part of this event, not only because it’s free (as I am part of the institution organizing the event) but also because of the fact that I got to learn many new things from people from various regions of the world. I also got to meet new people from different countries who share the same passion and aspirations as I do.
There is one thought in this conference that I can never forget. It is what Pierre Jacquet, President of GDN, said during his speech during the opening of the conference: “Deposition of skills in the labor market and the relationship of school years we spent is one area in research that should be focused on.” I tweeted this statement because of how I thought it was relevant to the youth, especially the ones who have access to education.
I think he wanted to point out that the skills demanded in the labor market do not always correspond to the number of school years acquired by an individual. Skills are earned not only by merely attending classes, doing homework or maybe answering exams, but that perhaps some skills can be acquired through extra-curricular activities inside campus.
Sometimes, the experiences outside of school lead to better skills learned by one’s own self. For instance, the workforce demands for creative people knowledgeable in layout and graphic design. A person holding a master’s degree in Economics is certainly not merely qualified by degree, even if the time he spent in school is obviously longer than a college dropout who just acquired layouting and graphic designing skills because of special interest. The person with shorter years spent in school – less educated – may in this case be getting a higher income than a person with a graduate degree – more educated – because he or she does not meet the demands of the labor market. Thus, it posits the claim that scrutinizing the labor market is important to determine the factors affecting productivity towards the goal of achieving inclusive growth.
I am not saying that one should stop pursuing graduate studies or school and instead follow one’s special interest or the talent you want to develop. Schooling is not always the measure of how many skills one possesses. This can be like one’s transcript of records, which does not necessarily translate what one can do and what one cannot do. Skills matter and these are not just earned from schools.
However, it has always been perceived that schooling is relatively proportional to the income a person will have. The more educated the person, the higher his or her income will be, generally speaking. This has always been relatively true. It automatically is expected that when you pursue a higher degree or invest some more in courses for your future, that you should be able to pay off such investments and land a better job together with a more satisfying salary. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), it has been well established that the distribution of incomes in society is strongly related to the amount of education people have had.
If the demands of skill in the labor market inexplicably vary with respect to the educational attainment of an individual, then these can be addressed by identifying the problems firsthand within the educational system. Any effects on the quality of education automatically translate to the future condition of the labor force because students in school will eventually become a significant part of the workforce. As President Aquino said in his keynote speech in the GDN conference, “The first step to solving any problem should be identifying the correct problem; otherwise any solution would be directionless.” This implies that the quality of education and how the educational system operates might be related to the students’ subsequent performance when they join the workforce, directly affecting the economy’s productivity and growth.
To be fair, the demands of labor market are not the most significant aspect in making one decide on which the career path to take, or choose to just selflessly contribute to economic growth (highly false, because people tend to be selfish; anyway that’s a different story). It remains one’s choice whether to pursue a career based on one’s skills or a career based on the education one has acquired. This just shows that the right human resource development is one key towards stable economic growth, a key stemming from each one of us.
