Dr Nguyen Hoang Tien Thu Dau Mot University CONFERENCE on “Building expected outcomes for the economic studies’ specializations in a response to demands of labor market” POSTGRADUATE STUDIES AS A RESPONSE TO THE LABOR MARKET DEMAND Information society, in which we live, is featured by extraordinary dynamic changes where information has an absolute priority So, every of us, if does not want his or her knowledge to be outdated, should learn continually, even throughout all our life The transformation resulting from the rising of information society has an impact not only on education sphere, but also on all the areas of his or her functioning, including works Postgraduate studies are very popular as a form of education enabling quick reaction to the changing needs in the labor market Xã hội thông tin mà sống nhấn mạnh thay đổi diễn cách phi thường với vai trị chủ đạo thơng tin Vì đó, cá nhân chúng ta, khơng muốn kiến thức trở nên lỗi thời, phải liên tục học hỏi xuyên suốt sống Sự thay đổi diễn tầm quan trọng ngày lớn xã hội thông tin tác động không tới lĩnh vực giáo dục mà tất lĩnh vực lại bao gồm công việc nghề nghiệp Đào tạo sau đại học dạng đào tạo thịnh hành ngày nay, cho phép người học phản ứng nhanh với yêu cầu thay đổi thị trường lao động Education in an information society Education in the information society differs significantly from these of the past Education seems to become one of the key resources of social capital and constitutes one of the vital conditions that guarantee each of individuals a decent existence Education enables and facilitates everyone to easily self-manage in harsh and extreme situations and quickly adapt to occurring changes Sudden and unexpected transformation forces us to learn again, makes changes to the working competencies and qualifications In association to that, it is expected that education will be flexible, multi direction oriented, extensive and versatile Because only as such, it can guarantee individuals to acquire high qualifications and competencies to be enable to find themselves a place in a very competitive labor market, and as a consequence, impact on their career path and future income Modern education must be future oriented in order to shape innovative, active and progressive people Its purpose is to transfer knowledge, but also includes sharpening all-round skills, developing and perfecting us internally and promoting general human values inside Such perceived education leads to the global activities based on the rule of democratic participation in the open and learning society and serves the social development in accordance with the spirit of humanism, cooperation and democracy The idea of continuing education is in accordance with the needs of a new type of society, taking into consideration the transformation process occurring in the labor market as well as the rhythm of individual existence resulting from dynamic changes characteristic for the new type of society Postgraduate education in the conception of continuing education Education at the academic level is an important element of the idea of the continuing education One of the forms of higher education is just postgraduate studies According to Robert Kidd, this form of education is a next level after graduation of Bachelor of Master degree’ studies [1] There are diverse needs to extend further the possessed knowledge and skills connected with professional or scientific (research) specialization which require better and more specialized background More often, people might be forced to change their professions due to private reasons as well as resulting from the situation in the labor market All those mentioned needs can be satisfied by postgraduate studies [2] which in the education process may play a role of specialist studies updating knowledge or studies of a general profile Postgraduate studies also may be interested by the participants not necessarily related with their actual professions [3, p 98] The purposes of postgraduate education The conception of continuing education consists of the following four main structural points: self-education, knowledge improvement, training, selfless learning [4] The universities through postgraduate studies offer training courses and carry out following functions of continuing education [3, pp 100-101]: Compensational – supplement of the knowledge, it is needed when the level of knowledge of students is not enough to carry out properly his or her professional tasks Renovative – refreshment of qualification, it is related with updating knowledge and skills in relations with technological development or changes of technical equipment at the working place Reconstructive – encouragement of creative ambitions of students in a way that the final results are improvements of his or her own place and better working organization As seen above, each of the forms of education possesses its own functions These functions imply the purposes of educational activities and the missions which, if fulfilled, will guarantee the achievement of certain results European universities are striving to determine those purposes and missions of their postgraduate studies According to Jaumotte [2], postgraduate studies should achieve the following purposes: Beside knowledge transferring, postgraduate studies should be designed to develop creative working skills, ability to solve problems, to apply scientific methods in the professional works Beside knowledge transferring, postgraduate studies should be helpful in self-education Beside knowledge transferring, postgraduate studies should help students in understanding specialists from other knowledge domains, to facilitate constructive dialogues and to ease the cooperation Beside knowledge transferring, postgraduate studies have to boost the innovative spirit, willingness to undertake risks related with innovations and finding new solutions for the problems, as well as transferring proven techniques and skills Technical postgraduate studies, beside knowledge transferring, should also serve to extend the social and human knowledge needed for the participants in effective working in the group and functioning in the society Continuing education towards the labor market In the new reality of information society, the character of works has gone through a significant transformation which is related with more workers’ mobility than ever before This phenomenon is also related with changes inside the European Union (EU), namely its enlargement process and the opening of new labor markets Presently, the citizens of most of EU member-states are eligible to work across the whole EU, despite the fact that they have acquired the education in their homeland In association with that, there appeared a problem of adequacy of possessed education to the needs of the labor market in the EU There are many new rising challenges which concern first and foremost: the adaptation of the study program to the requirements of contemporary labor market and uplifting the level of education, change of training offers, determining key professional skills, cooperation with other institutions outside the education spheres, the application of Information and Communication Technology as well as enhancing the flexibility of different solutions The response to the transformation in the education and labor market may be wide offer of postgraduate studies which in quite a short time are capable to equip students with knowledge and new qualifications coping well with changing situations and conditions in the market As mentioned above, the contemporary education, including postgraduate studies, cannot be considered in detachment from the labor market Education is obliged to the social and individual rights and reasons to output products that respond to the needs of the labor market whose participants are the students/trainees/employees, the educational institutes/universities/colleges and the businesses/entrepreneurs/employers Labor market is determined by the quality of knowledge and skills of potential workers as a result of training and knowledge and skills’ acquiring process Hence, for the development of the labor market, the development of education system is vital So, the codependence/interrelation between labor market and education market is evident Education is shaping labor market and the market becomes a space in which the “products” of the education process are under the impact and pressure of market mechanisms Conclusion In the face of the presented facts, postgraduate studies seem to be a very attractive form of education Studies of this kind seem to be interesting, because they enable knowledge acquirement in a relatively short time (from half to one year) in comparison to the Bachelor and Master studies Moreover, they respond to the needs of the market in the areas of training, improvements or even requalification to other professions, because finishing those studies is equivalent to the possessing of new professional qualifications This type of study responds well to the needs of mobility, because once they are delivered in one country they also are recognized across all EU member-states The information society means the increase in the importance of education and the necessity of continuing education Undoubtedly, postgraduate studies are in accordance with the idea of all-life learning Moreover, it is possible to study the specializations which are totally not related to the previous education and experience of the participants So, this form of education corresponds to the postulate of availability/accessibility and elasticity of education process and education system This type of study realizes the postulate of continuing education strictly related to the all-round comprehensive development and activities of each individual Moreover, there is no age barrier to disallow study in this mode/form The only requirement/barrier to undertake this form of study is to possess a university/college education, minimum at Bachelor level The appearance of many professions in the labor market implies the necessity to train people having desired professional qualification, even in very narrow specializations Education towards new professional activities in Bachelor/Master system takes more time than in postgraduate studies So, this form of study is capable to react flexibly and more quickly to the needs of labor market than the study in Bachelor/Master more regardless full-time or part-time which is a quite obvious advantage Reference: J Polturzycki: Higher education and the idea of continuing education [in] E Gorska, J Polturzycki: Continuing education in the universities – from idea to practice WITE, Plock-Torun, 2005 p 38, p 155 J Polturzycki: Academic education for the grown up Warsaw University publisher, Warsaw 1994, , pp 143-144 M Zdaniewicz: Postgraduate study as an element of continuing education [in] Z Wolk: Higher education in the system of continuing education OWUZ, Zielona Gora, 2009 Z Wiatrowski: Principles of pedagogic works WSp publisher, Bydgoszcz 2000, p 344 ... certain results European universities are striving to determine those purposes and missions of their postgraduate studies According to Jaumotte [2], postgraduate studies should achieve the following... serve to extend the social and human knowledge needed for the participants in effective working in the group and functioning in the society Continuing education towards the labor market In the... including postgraduate studies, cannot be considered in detachment from the labor market Education is obliged to the social and individual rights and reasons to output products that respond to