The race for a place in higher education across Enem began yesterday for the millions of candidates who sat the exam. Pursuing a university career in the future that offers better income and employment conditions is the legitimate dream of most young people, but only a minority will achieve this. This is the case practically all over the world, but the discrepancy between expectations and reality is greater in Brazil.
In May this year, the OECD released a report on preparing teenagers for careers around the world. The print publication did not provide data on Brazil, but an interactive platform created by the organization allows checking the country’s position compared to others on some indicators, through students’ responses to the Pisa questionnaire, a test administered to 15-year-olds.
When asked what type of profession they would like to have at the age of 30, 62% of young Brazilians indicated traditional professions that require complete higher education, such as doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect and others. It turns out that these professionals represent only 12% of workers in the labor market. In other countries that participate in the Pisa programme, the percentage of students with university career ambitions is no different from what we see here, where the percentages are also around 60%. The difference is that in developed countries these job vacancies represent between 20% and 30% of the labor market, which leads to less imbalance.
To reduce the distance between dream and reality, much needs to be done. Part of the solution is our ability to generate more highly skilled jobs, while ensuring that the supply of professionals with the requirements to fill these vacancies matches demand. This in itself is a non-trivial challenge. But the OECD report highlights other areas where we need to make more progress. One of them is career guidance.
On the OECD average, 49% of students said they received careers guidance from a professional within school, a percentage that drops to 32% here. When the same question is asked about out-of-school guidance, this picture reverses, with Brazil having a slightly higher rate (36%) than the OECD average (33%), but with a peculiarity typical of ours: huge social inequality. Here, among young people from families with a higher socio-economic level, the proportion of those who received vocational guidance outside school is 42%, while among the most vulnerable groups this proportion drops to 29%. In the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the discrepancy between the two extremes is minimal (32% and 33%). In other words, the poorest young people, and specifically those who would benefit most from effective career guidance, are those who receive the least support, whether from school or family.
Obviously, not all employment problems will be solved through career guidance. In addition to the dynamics of the labor market, it is also necessary to expand the range of options available to those who finish secondary school. This includes vocational education, and more initiatives that link schools and employers or support the transition – especially for the most vulnerable groups – between school and work. It would also be helpful, in the case of young people entering higher education, if we could provide more time to choose a career. Forcing them to make choices that will affect their lives at 17 years of age and throwing them into a rigid model that makes transitioning between areas of higher education difficult only increases the risk of frustration and early dropout.
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