YOUNGSTERS SEEK JOBS, PRODUCERS NEED SKILLED LABOR: THE YOUNG MASTER MODEL
· Halil ETYEMEZ
Having been involved in professional life for many years, undertaking various responsibilities from teaching to educational management, from union struggles to public administration and politics, I have been hearing the same complaint from different segments of society for years.
Having been involved in professional life for many years, undertaking various responsibilities from teaching to educational management, from union struggles to public administration and politics, I have been hearing the same complaint from different segments of society for years.
Our young people say, 'We can't find jobs.'
Our industrialists, shopkeepers, and producers say, 'We can't find qualified people to employ.'
On one side, young people looking for jobs; on the other, businesses looking for employees…
This situation shows us that Turkey's issue is not solely unemployment. We also have a significant matching and skills problem between jobs and people, education and production, youth and professions.
My experience in professional life has shown me this: We cannot solve the employment issue solely by asking 'How many people have we placed in jobs?' One of the questions we should be asking is:
How many of our young people have we truly made into skilled professionals?
Because a job can change, a workplace can close, technology can transform, and the structure of professions can evolve. However, if a person possesses a real skill, vocational competency, and work experience, they can get back on their feet. They can work in another company, develop themselves, and when conditions are right, start their own business.
Based on this thought, I want to present a new model that I believe needs to be worked on to the public's attention:
The Young Master Program.
At the core of the Young Master Program lies a simple yet important idea:
Let's not just find jobs for young people; let's equip them with professions.
Turkey has significant institutional experience in vocational education, on-the-job training programs, employment incentives, and vocational qualification and certification systems. We have İŞKUR (Turkish Employment Agency), SGK (Social Security Institution), the Ministry of National Education with its vocational high schools and vocational training centers, the Vocational Qualifications Authority, Organized Industrial Zones, and professional organizations.
Therefore, the issue is not always about establishing a new institution.
The issue is to bring together the resources we have more effectively around the goal of a young person becoming a skilled professional and permanently integrating into the workforce.
The Young Master Program should not be considered a classic course or an extended on-the-job training program.
In this model, the young person must be a real employee from day one.
They should have an employment contract, receive a wage, and be fully insured.
Simultaneously, they must undergo a planned, trackable, and measurable development process in a specific profession.
We need to strike an important balance here.
For two years, the young person is not just a student receiving training. They are also actively working and contributing to production. Therefore, the employer should be primarily responsible for their wage.
The state's role should not be to pay the employee's entire wage in place of the employer, but rather to share the company's training, premium, and development costs under certain conditions during the young person's formative period.
This way, the young person is not seen as cheap labor, and the company is not left alone in the process of developing human capital.
However, there is an element more important than incentives at the heart of the Young Master Program:
The master instructor.
From my years of teaching to my roles in professional life, I have always seen a fundamental truth in education: Developing people is not just about transferring knowledge. Knowledge must be transformed into skill, skill into behavior, and behavior into professional ethics.
There is a vast treasure of knowledge within Turkey's factories, workshops, and businesses.
The knowledge possessed by individuals who have worked at the same machine for years, who can diagnose a malfunction from the sound of the machine, predict the outcome from the behavior of the material, and spot potential errors before they even arise, is often not fully documented in any book.
The experience gained by these individuals over the years is one of our country's great, unseen capital assets.
When our masters withdraw from professional life, we don't just lose an employee. We sometimes lose decades of production knowledge.
Therefore, the Young Master Program should also be a model for transferring vocational memory.
Of course, this transfer cannot be left to chance.
Master instructors who meet the conditions stipulated by legislation must be at the center of the system; and our masters with sufficient professional experience should be enabled to become master instructors by completing the necessary requirements.
Master instructors who truly develop people should be further incentivized.
However, success should not be measured solely by an exam score.
The young person's completion of the program, skill acquisition, certification of competency, and duration of employment should be evaluated together.
Because the state should incentivize not only those who employ people but also those who train them.
A skills acquisition map should be created for each young person.
What job did the young person learn?
What machine can they operate?
In which production process can they participate?
What occupational health and safety competencies have they acquired?
All of these should be measured and recorded.
In the future of professional life, the question we will ask increasingly, alongside the diploma, is:
What can this person do?
A diploma is valuable, of course. However, an employment system based solely on credentials, without measuring the skills needed for production, is no longer sufficient.
Here, we can leverage the existing vocational education infrastructure of our Ministry of National Education more effectively.
Our vocational high schools, vocational training centers, technical teachers, and workshops have significant capacity. Recognition of prior learning, measurement and assessment, and relevant vocational certification opportunities can be integrated into the system.
The Vocational Qualifications Authority can also contribute to the process with national occupational standards and qualification systems in relevant areas.
However, an important point needs to be emphasized:
The Young Master Program should not be an alternative to vocational high schools and vocational training centers.
If we create a system that makes a vocational high school student think, 'I don't need to study; I can join this program later,' we will solve one problem while creating another.
Therefore, the program should primarily target young people who are outside the education and employment system and lack vocational qualifications.
Our young people, referred to today as 'NEET' (Not in Education, Employment, or Training), are particularly important in this regard.
We must open a second door for these young people.
However, this door should be called a second chance, not an easy way out.
Over the years, through my field visits in both professional life and politics, I have seen very clearly that the labor needs of every region in Turkey are not the same.
While one city may be looking for welders, another may lack CNC operators, electricians, machine maintenance technicians, or plumbers.
Therefore, another fundamental principle of the Young Master Program should be:
First, identify the need, then train the person.
Current open job data from İŞKUR, the demands of Organized Industrial Zones, and field information from chambers of industry and commerce, as well as tradesmen and professional organizations, should be evaluated together.
A real vocational needs map should be created for each region.
Our fundamental principle should be clear:
To train the required number of people, in the needed profession, in the needed location.
This approach will not only increase employment success. It will ensure the proper use of public resources and reduce the risk of program abuse.
I have had the opportunity to closely observe how incentive systems work in professional life, where they generate benefits, and at which points they can lead to undesirable outcomes.
Therefore, I particularly emphasize that a well-intentioned project must be supported by a robust oversight system.
Businesses that dismiss their current employees and hire young people with public support should not be permitted. The employment history of companies should be considered, and the program should be based on the principle that young people hired under the program create a genuine increase in employment.
Because the purpose of public support is not to create cheap labor but to train new and qualified personnel.
Technical training alone is not sufficient for young people to stay in their professions.
One of the issues we encounter with some of our young people today is that they do not see a future in the work they do.
Simply telling a young person 'Do this job' is not enough.
We also need to show them the value of their labor, the dignity of mastery, the place of work in human life, and how they can advance in their profession.
Therefore, the Young Master Program should include a 'Professional Culture and Future Program'.
Work ethic, work discipline, occupational health and safety culture, financial literacy, communication, career planning, and entrepreneurship should be complementary elements of this process.
At the end of two years, the young person should not only learn to do a job but also gain a professional identity.
Another path can be opened for young people who successfully complete the program:
From Young Master to Young Entrepreneur.
It is not possible or necessary for every young person to start their own business.
However, for our young people who have learned their profession, gained experience, reached the necessary qualifications, and have a viable business idea, their access to existing entrepreneurship and financing support can be facilitated.
Thus, the young person's journey can extend:
from unemployment to employment,
from employment to skill,
from skill to profession,
from profession to mastery,
and for those who desire and are capable, from mastery to entrepreneurship.
While doing all this, we should not be swayed by the allure of large numbers.
One of the important experiences I gained during my time in public administration is this: Grand goals are valuable; but good public policy must first establish the right model, implement it, measure it, and then scale it up.
Therefore, it would be more appropriate to pilot the Young Master Program first with 500 or 1,000 young people, in a limited number of provinces, and in professions with real needs.
Then, we should look at the results.
How many young people started?
How many continued?
How many became skilled professionals?
How many gained qualifications?
How many are still in registered employment after two and three years?
How did their income develop?
To what extent was the employer's need for qualified labor met?
What was the public cost of one permanent employment?
The measure of success for a new generation of public administration is not solely the budget spent or the number of people registered in the program.
The real success is the lasting change that occurs in a person's life.
Turkey's young population is a great opportunity.
However, a young population does not automatically transform into productive power.
It needs to be brought together with education, skills, professions, work ethic, and production.
Similarly, the knowledge and experience accumulated by our masters over the years are not automatically passed on to future generations.
A system needs to be established for this.
This is why I do not see the Young Master concept merely as a new employment incentive.
This model is a quest to bring together education and professional life, youth and profession, master instructor and new generation, employer and qualified personnel, and public resources with the real needs of the field within the same system.
Throughout my professional life, spanning from teaching to unionism, from public administration to politics, I have never lost my faith in our people.
Our young people learn.
Our masters teach.
Our people produce when given the opportunity.
It is up to us to connect the right person with the right profession, the right master, and the right system.
Let's equip young people not just with a job, but with a profession.
Let's provide businesses not just with incentives, but with qualified personnel.
Let's transfer the accumulated experience of our masters to new generations.
Let's open new paths for our young people to build their own futures with their labor.
Because a country's productive capacity is measured not only by the size of its factories, machines, and capital, but also by the knowledge, skills, ethics, and mastery of the people who carry out that production.
Young Master…
A Master. A Young Person. A Profession. A Future.