What made SCM develop occupational standards? 

SCM is the biggest national employer. Today we employ over 200,000 people and understand like no one else that skilled staff is a key to our success. Mining and metals and energy are the backbone of our business. Now Ukrainians think the industry sector is not a great place to build a career. So there is a staff shortage in terms of both quantity and quality.  It means the people who are ready to work at industrial plants do not have the knowledge and skills that we the employers need.  The existing gap is giant and it did not come from nowhere. In fact, there is a gap not only between the labour market and potential employees. First of all, there is a gap between educational system and the labour market. I mean universities and vocational schools give students the knowledge and skills that are unnecessary at a workplace.

All countries in the world faced this problem, and there is a solution, although it was not us who found it. This tool is called occupational standard, and we call it job specification.  Broadly speaking, the real sector, i.e. the labour market - one or better several companies or even better the entire industry - should develop on a regular basis a sort of feedback for the educational system: what knowledge and skills the graduates should have to qualify for a job, have a competitive salary and enjoy good career opportunities. Ukraine has no such kind of occupational standards, so in 2011 SCM launched a pilot project. We have chosen our core areas - mining and metals, power generation and distribution and journalism, to be more specific digital journalism, and made the decision to develop occupational standards trying not to engage other parties. The original intent was to develop a kind of corporate standard. However, from the very beginning we engaged the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour as well as partnered with the British Council, which has a huge expertise, and the Confederation of Employers. So, despite we tried to make some product for ourselves it had the potential to become an industry-wide product.

Today we have an opportunity to talk to the metallurgists, tell them what we have done and our main goal is to ask a simple question: "Are they ready to join us and do they see any benefits for themselves from what we have done?" If yes, then our next actions are clear and we will deliver an occupational standard. We have university partners which are ready to change their curricula in 2012 and train their academic staff to ensure that their graduates who spend their most bright and important years in the universities are not just people with diplomas but people with the required knowledge and skills.

When can we expect the results from implementation of the occupational standards?

Since this issue is not about universities only, but relates to the whole system of education and since vocational schools are also engaged in the project, the first results for vocational schools will become clear at the end of the academic year 2012/13, while for universities, i.e. engineers, this is the end of 2015, provided that all the parties concerned are motivated equally. I think this time will pass quickly and we will soon feel the difference.