The Impact of Education on Youth Employability: The Case of Selected Southeastern European Countries

This paper focuses on the processes of school-to-work transitions in a selected group of countries from South-eastern Europe (SEE), namely: Bosnia and Herzegovina; Croatia; Montenegro; North Macedonia; Serbia; and, Slovenia. Each of these countries display the same roots of development in their educational systems: however, due to their transition and integration processes within the European Union, they implemented different concepts of reforms within their educational systems. In addition, the challenges of youth employability are a common problem for each of the selected countries, and the effectiveness of the processes of school-to-work-transition varies across the countries. By using panel data and multiple linear regression models, this paper estimates the impact of different educational levels on youth employability and changes in the rates of NEET population (aged 15–24) in the selected group of countries over the period 2009 to 2019. The results suggest that the impact of the attained level of education has an ambiguous effect on the rates of youth employment; moreover, the relationship with changes in NEET rates are statistically significant and negative in most of the selected group of countries.

Rethinking Education and Livelihoods in India

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed a need for rethinking approaches to education and livelihoods. Education in its present dispensation does not provide equitable access to children from marginalized segments of the population. It also suffers from deficits in the areas of social and emotional skills, over-emphasis on the three Rs, language used as a medium of instruction, and excessive competition for scoring marks, among others. There is very low uptake of vocational education. The National Education Policy 2020 tries to address some of these issues and plans on closer integration of vocational education with the school framework. High unemployment rates of educated youth, along with underemployment due to skill mismatch, show poor school-to-work transition and underscore the importance of TVET for youth in the future. Skill already exists in the economy in informal knowledge systems which are largely undocumented and thus not acknowledged in the formal system. These need to be combined with Western-centric knowledge systems so that the imbalance between formally educated/trained workers and informally trained workers is redressed. There is also a need to bring back the joy of learning, as Tagore’s experimentation with education has demonstrated.

The Impact of Cultural Capital on Development of Entrepreneurship in Wales

The focus of this paper is the impact of parental cultural capital on offspring’s occupational choice in relation to entrepreneurship. Despite growing interest to cultural motives for entrepreneurship on an individual level, few studies link these two domains empirically. This study follows the Culture Based Development research paradigm (CBD) developed by Tubadji and explores how culture influences occupational choices of school graduates during school-to-work transition. The main hypothesis of this paper is that sons of entrepreneurs are more likely to choose transitions into entrepreneurship after graduating school. I test three hypotheses on a unique historic dataset from Wales, UK, employing Probit analysis. I found a significant correlation between entrepreneurial background of father and son’s entrepreneurial entry. Poor socio-economic status of a father is also a predictor of entry into entrepreneurship of their son, motivated by necessity. The findings of this research contributed to the applicability of CBD to a historic dataset of earlier periods to capture a significant cultural impact on entrepreneurship development in Wales, UK.

The post-treatment return-to-work transition experience for breast cancer survivors under 50 years of age

The purpose of this study is to explore the experience of cancer survivors less than 50 years of age, as they transition back to work after the end of treatment. Eight survivors took part in this exploratory qualitative study. The results of the iterative content analysis suggest that these survivors want to put their illness-focused life behind them and resume a “normal” existence, of which a return to work is an integral part. The return-to-work transition is also influenced by various personal, family and societal factors that can facilitate or inhibit the experience. Lastly, a number of distinct challenges and a higher level of vulnerability must be taken into consideration by healthcare professionals to be able to better support these survivors transitioning back to work.