Education in the real estate and construction industry is currently plagued by a lack of perspective and the industry lacks a common education and competence strategy. The boundaries between the different education levels in the field are unclear in some places, and the fear is whether there are enough professionals for all areas. At the same time, the real estate and construction industry is diversifying and the need for more and more in-depth expertise in, for example, building physics, energy efficiency and management is constantly growing.
In the future, the shortage of skilled workers may be real in, for example, bridge construction, building technology and structural design. At the same time, however, it is necessary to consider whether all subjects should be taught everywhere, or would it make more sense to specialize in some areas by, for example, creating regional competence centers?
The individual's and companies' own responsibility for learning will be emphasized even more in the future. In-depth professional knowledge must be acquired when transitioning to working life, so the working life readiness of the graduating young person is currently reasonable. In practice, in the first jobs, you have to study more about the most important things in the field and continue self-development in accordance with the famous lifelong learning.
All kinds of open interaction and cooperation between different education levels are prerequisites for creating a functioning education structure. Each educational institution takes care of its own basic education, but interaction helps in finding priority areas. In practice, universities can bring scientific support to other levels and, for example, universities of applied sciences can provide joint business projects in the direction of universities. All in all, it is important to strengthen the centers of expertise, while ensuring that both veterans and newcomers work in them.
Companies also have to communicate their own staff competence needs to the university and higher education world. Cooperation between industry and universities is not out of science, and it is not difficult. It's all about attitudes - prejudices should be shaken from both sides.
Jukka Pekkanen
Director, Building Construction Industry Association
Professor, civil engineering, Tampere University of Technology
Write a comment