Students with technical degrees have 15 times better chance at a job, says Voka
Job vacancies in the Antwerp-Waasland region are a clear indicator of which degrees are going to get graduates in Flanders to work the fastest
Electromechanics in demand
The chapter just published a Digital Competency Barometer, carried out to determine which students holding secondary or higher education degrees were getting job offers. The barometer also shows what kind of diplomas employers in the region (all of Antwerp province and parts of East Flanders) were looking for in potential workers.
It turned out that a degree from a technical university-college was the most prized among a majority of employers with current vacancies. On top of that, a degree from a TSO, or technical, secondary school was comparable to a master’s degree in a non-technical discipline.
The chapter carried out the study to confirm what it heard from its members – that technical degrees were needed to fill bottleneck jobs. “There are 23,484 job vacancies in the Antwerp-Waasland region today,” said chapter chair Luc Luwel. Nearly 40% of them “are in production and technical industries and the logistics and transport sectors. These are the biggest job providers.”
Pupils looking for jobs who only hold an ASO diploma have very little chance
In the Antwerp-Waasland region, 13% of employers are specifically looking for workers with a TSO diploma, and one in 10 for workers with a BSO diploma.
Luwel and Voka are trying to tackle the ideologies enshrined in Flanders’ education sector with hard figures. There is still a tendency to push the pupils with higher marks towards ASO, or general education, and the pupils who perform less well to the TSO or BSO (career-oriented) tracks. This creates a kind of stigma among pupils in technical and career education.
Voka would like to see pupils choose tracks according to interest rather than marks and to convince pupils that choosing TSO and BSO offers the best opportunities for gaining employment. This is particularly true if the graduate does not plan to pursue higher education. “Pupils looking for jobs who only hold an ASO diploma have very little chance,” said Luwel.
Besides electronics and electromechanics, the most sought-after specialities in the Antwerp-Waasland region are business and logistics management.
Photo courtesy My Machine Vlaanderen
