Project to align higher education with job market — 13,000 businesses to take part

The Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education is set to implement a project aimed at linking the country’s higher education with the labour market, according to an announcement released on Wednesday.

This initiative, the first of its kind being implemented by the department, will be conducted in collaboration with PwC Cyprus, under a project proposed and included in the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Republic of Cyprus, centred around the development of a national graduate tracking mechanism, in conjunction with the design and implementation of an employers’ skills survey.

The latter part of the project, titled the CyEmployers survey, aims to better align the skills acquired through higher education with the needs of the labour market, thus enhancing employment prospects for graduates of Cypriot higher education institutions and forecasting future labour market needs in terms of skills.

Moreover, the announcement noted that the methodology for the survey is being developed in collaboration with the University of Warwick, specifically with the Institute for Employment Research.

The survey includes a representative sample of private sector enterprises, as well as the entire public and broader public sector.

Specifically, the sample of private sector enterprises consists of approximately 13,000 businesses selected through stratified sampling from the registry of companies maintained by the Cyprus Statistical Service (Cystat).

What is more, data collection is being conducted through an electronic questionnaire. Access to the questionnaire is provided through the project’s website or by using the personal link sent via email.

Employers from the private sector whose companies are included in the sample, and all managerial staff overseeing the various divisions of the public and broader public sector will be invited to complete the questionnaire. In terms of the public sector, these divisions include the various departments with managerial responsibilities, such as heads of services, units, sections, authorities, and committees, among others.

“The contribution of private sector employers and managerial staff of the public and broader public sector to the CyEmployers survey is deemed crucial for identifying labour market needs in terms of skills,” the announcement noted.

“The survey results are expected to contribute to the improvement of the content of existing study programmes of higher education institutions in Cyprus, the development of new study programmes, the design and delivery of lifelong learning programmes by other education and training providers, and the revision of the curricula of primary and secondary education,” it added.

Finally, the announcement explained that “the survey is considered crucial for providing more targeted professional and career guidance to individuals at any stage of their lives, aiding them in making optimal professional decisions”.