High school choice: the labor market link is uninteresting if it's not fun!
"Fun", "fun", "fun" is the recurring theme when ninth graders are asked what guides their high school choices. Young people choose fun even if it leads to a skill that is not in demand. The pupils know exactly which schools and programs they want to choose, but questions about labor market establishment and labor market demand are perceived as foreign.
On behalf of Ratio, Lund researcher Alexandru Panican has conducted a number of in-depth interviews with young people in year 9, asking them about their attitudes to the choice of upper secondary school from a number of different perspectives. What one might have suspected beforehand, but which is made abundantly clear in the report, is that it is exclusively desire and inspiration that govern the choice, and that "adult information" about what different upper secondary programs lead to is completely uninteresting.
A quote from the report that sums it up well (p.36):
All interviewees would choose a "fun" upper secondary program even if the training turned out to lead to a skill that was not in demand or pointed towards an establishment in an industry with a surplus of trained people.
The report also confirms how young people's choices are driven by their social and cultural background, even if they themselves deny it. However, the report contains other conclusions that go against common (adult) beliefs. One such idea is that young people would find the choice stressful and unpleasant, another that young people would be uncertain and confused about what to choose. However, the report shows that the choice is perceived as exclusively positive, that they finally get to choose what they want instead of compulsory primary school. Moreover, young people have a very clear idea of the programs they want to apply for, even if the type of job the programs lead to and how sought-after they are, as mentioned, are perceived as irrelevant.
The young people also say that they have not received information about career paths and the like from the school's study and career counselors, but according to Panican, this is because they are not interested in this information. It should be noted, however, that they are still interested in the services of the SYVs, but then it is more about getting practical help with "clicking through" to the program they want to apply for.
So, what is the conclusion? Well, if we want to reach young people, we need to highlight what they perceive as the fun. Not just in studying with like-minded friends on a particular upper secondary program, but the fun of the professional identities that education leads to. We from IT&Telecom companies do our best to contribute to this. Not least through our school competition Next Up, which is not an information effort but an inspirational effort where young people through meetings with people in the industry get to experience the social and creative aspects of working with IT. The fun, quite simply.