Educational Imbalance in the Job Market

Educational imbalance can be present in the job market. The job market should be a place where educational qualifications and jobs are matched. However, we can observe that many jobs accept, welcome or encourage applicants who are not educationally suitable to them. Supply and demand for graduates can also be a form of imbalance in education. There are certain times in which graduates in in demand careers are few while graduates in saturated fields are many.

• The Job Market – The job market manifests a form of educational imbalance. There have been an increase in jobs which are lenient on the qualifications of graduates. There are job advertisements which indicate that they prefer graduates of the study field corresponding to the career field; they further indicate that they also will still greatly consider applicants who are not graduates in the study field corresponding to the career. To add, because of the dual and multi-training of graduates, students and drop outs, many companies do not specify study fields that they require of graduates or non-graduates in their job advertisements. They indicate that any graduate, for example, in any course can be considered for the position.

• Supply Of and Demand For Graduates – Supply and demand are factors and they can be factors in educational imbalance. Every now and then, certain career fields experience over or lack of supply of graduates. Correspondingly, certain study fields experience over or lack of demand for their graduates. For example, nursing graduates were in demand in previous years because there were still few graduates compared to vacant nursing jobs. In response to the demand, many students study nursing with the hope of landing jobs after they graduate. However, as time passed by the vacant positions were filled and the newer graduates arrive at the job market only to find out that the demand have been satisfied and there is now shortage of vacant positions.

The Educational Imbalance in Public Elementary Education in The U.S.

     

        As junior year high school students, some of our teachers would always tell us that we should be aware and conscious of the current problems and issues that face the public funded education system in the United States since we are studying in a publicly funded high school. One of our teachers gave us a research report assignment about the topic of current problems or issues currently facing the publicly funded high school system in the U.S. I focused my report on the educational imbalance that is facing various public high school systems in the country.

        In my research report topic, I focused on the educational imbalance of how our level of competitiveness and the rates of passing grades of examinations in science, mathematics and technology subjects are falling compared to the rates of passing grades in developed countries in Europe and Asia. Based on the books and reading materials that I read and studied in the library and from online materials in the Internet, I found out that in the last 25 years, many elementary school students in the fourth grade level have only moderately improved their skills in mathematics. But in the same period, the elementary school students in the 12th grade level have barely or not improved at all in their skills in mathematics, which means that many 12th grade students have a hard time in solving basic problems in mathematics.

        I also read educational studies by experts that this educational imbalance of barely or not improving level of skills in mathematics from the 8th grade to the 12th grade levels would affect the students when they graduate from high school. They would enter universities and colleges at a level of educational preparedness that would not equip them for the subjects in the sciences, mathematics and technology that is taken up in the higher education level.