WOLF, Petr1, KOLIBA, Frantisek2 & DRASTICH, Lubomir3
1 Dep. Atr, Faculty of Engineering, VSB - Technical University of Ostrava
2 Dep. Informatics, School of Business Administration, Silesian University
3 Karnola, a. s.
Abstract: The paper deals with the proposal of a characteristic and specification of the curricula at technical universities in the Czech Republic. These aspects represent a comparison with the needs of the enterprises in the Czech Republic. The authors in their papers bring the proposal of the curricula innovation at technical universities with regard to the needs of enterprises. The other goal of this paper is to provide graduates with a bigger chance of being successful on the labour market in the Czech Republic and later in EC.
Keywords: curricula, innovation, global market, re-engineering, controlling
We have asked a simple question. What should young people master so that also top firms would show interest in them, so that they would have a maximal chance to acquire a relevant position with perspectives of promotion.
We can see that more and more analyses, studies and articles are elaborated and published, conferences and seminars are organised which deal with the education, its content, quality and importance. These publications deal, above all, with the contributions and significance of the education from different perspectives and at different levels. Ranging from the level of an individual and enterprise, up to the level of the whole economy and state.
However, the authors are not professional lecturers, but rather specialists from the area of economy, management of enterprises and public sphere. It is obvious that education is not only a domain of educational system any more. Nowadays we cannot forget about the education of unemployed people of almost all age groups. A generally recognised concept of the lifetime education is not only a suitable theoretical subject-matter, but the reality. Both students and employees from all areas can feel this fact very considerably, above all, with the wave of bankrupting enterprises and therefore, with the dismissals or looking for a job /2/. Therefore, the role of the lifetime education and connection of the teaching process not only with the tradition but, above all with the modern, in practice applicable means, is very important.
We are the part of the society, where the prompt changes, uncertainty and chaos prevail. The world, where the basic economic categories such as land, capital and labour were completed by information, which more and more dominates this group.
A new syndrome appears more and more distinctly – rapacity together with the adroitness of small companies which liquidate big well-established companies in this way. Their advantage also lies in the natural straight organisational structure, the pace of their adaptability company’s culture based on the ”proximity” to decision-making and profit.
Business takes place in real time, therefore also management has to take place in the real time. What has been so far applied only in the management of the technological processes starts to be valid in a certain form in the management of companies.
The changes that have appeared can be the impulse and it is necessary to react to these changes immediately. Only such a company and such management can be successful which will be able to react to these impulses and act under these conditions. The management have to make concrete decisions. These steps are nowadays the only real expression of the future. The opinion that we will be able to control our future like we have done so far is very improbable today. We have to realise that the changes have become a current phenomenon, which we have to react to in real time. Here we do not talk about a very distant future. This process has already started and it continues and spreads very quickly /3,4/.
E.g. JIT – minimisation of warehouses, minimisation of spare parts, production modification according to the customers’ wishes in the automobile industry. Re-engineering of the top companies and subsequent organisational structure as straight as possible, minimisation of costs, management of branches in the whole world from one head office. Controlling as a very successful method of management.
It is obvious that the chance to be successful will be given only to a person who is able to react to the unexpected changes very quickly and properly, the person who is able to forget about the common certainty.
Regardless very different conditions in the individual countries, the specialists agree on one fact that successfully, in a satisfactorily broad range of education, staff plays more and more important role in innovations. These, mainly spoken about for years, are the presumption of the development and competition of enterprises and subsequently of the whole economy.
Therefore, the education in the progressive enterprises becomes a part of the whole strategy and the managers of such enterprises consider the education as a priority. In the opposite case the extremes appear, when the orders are rejected as the staff is not able to cope with orders organisationally (minor technological modifications, maintenance of the quality, delivery terms, operational changes in the assortment, package, transport, etc.) Generally we can say that the enterprises in the Czech Republic were product-orientated not customer-orientated, they ignored the global market.
This trend continues. The positive can be the fact that more has been written and said about it. However, technical universities in particular devote minimum space to this problem justifying that these problems should be discussed at economic faculties. And this is the main weakness of the curricula. It is a cardinal question what profession our students are being prepared for. To what extent with the acquired education they are able to find a place on the labour market, which must be understood as a global one, full of permanent changes, the market which is able to adapt to the new conditions very quickly /3/.
Very often can we hear that the graduates of technical universities in particular become very successful managers. However, this is not complete information and to a certain extent self-satisfaction. Remarkable is the fact that this trend has been considerably decreasing especially with the increasing number of joint-venture companies. As far as we know and have often confirmed, a person with technical education at any technical university in our republic, in the case he wants to start the career of a manager and make sure he will be successful, he will have to study economical subjects. This is possible in a number of MBA programmes or courses. If, however, you are offered a managerial post or you would like to apply for one, no-one will wait until you complement your education background, e.g. Table 1 /1/. One of the considerable changes in a number of our companies, especially ones with significant share of the government, is exactly the ‘experienced management with the orientation merely and above all to production’. There are numerous examples, viz. ‘Hospodarske noviny’.
If we focus on students – economic faculty graduates – we will conclude that they miss considerable knowledge from the area of industry and they are orientated above all on: marketing, financial management, and so on, as far as the industrial sphere is concerned. Without further education new managers will be hardly found among those graduates.
Table 1 Evaluation of graduates’ readiness for their career
|
INDICATOR |
EKF |
FMMI |
HGF |
FAST |
FEI |
FS |
VSB-TU |
|
Theoretical preparation |
3,9 |
4 |
3,7 |
3,9 |
3,9 |
4,0 |
3,9 |
|
Special knowledge of the major |
3,1 |
3,5 |
3,4 |
3,1 |
3,9 |
3,5 |
3,3 |
|
Practical skills |
2,4 |
2,7 |
2,8 |
2,6 |
2,9 |
2,7 |
2,6 |
|
Language skills |
2,4 |
2,3 |
2,2 |
2,3 |
2,5 |
2,1 |
2,4 |
|
Knowledge from the area of management |
3,1 |
2,7 |
2,3 |
2,3 |
1,8 |
2,4 |
2,7 |
The respondents evaluated the selected criteria according to the range from 5 (very good) to 1 (very bad). The weighed mean expresses the final value of each criterion.
It is obvious that the industrial sector needs a wide range of graduates. What is the weakness? Above all, what requirements are put on the applicants for managerial posts. Throughout the recent fifteen, twenty years business has undergone a number of changes. New approaches have been created where the necessary reengineering, knowledge management, benchmarking and so on are critical. It goes without saying that they have showed in the requirements for the knowledge of the present managers. In fact, we have also recorded a shift which will be evaluated after a certain period. For example, during ‘slimming’ of companies P.F. Drucker states in Harward Business review that within the last fifteen years the levels of management have been reduced by half all over the world, Japan included. This has undoubtedly called for new approaches. The profile of a manager is a very complicated question as the manager himself does not exist. We can distinguish different types of managers, however, they have always something in common. It is the fact they deal with people – colleagues, superiors and inferiors. That is leadership skills. Another quality, which becomes more and more recognised with regard to the economic development, is globalisation. This also holds true for small companies. We talk about the ability to be comparable with others without any limitations (geographical, regional limitations, the company’s size, owners, and so on).
If we take into consideration our knowledge and hard skills of present university students in the Western Europe and USA who want to achieve an excellent starting point, then we can see that they will either select two study majors or such a combination of subjects (depending on a particular school) so that they can study a technical discipline and at the same time economics or law. Then the only thing which the High Potentials miss is experience. The labour market shows an enormous interest in such graduates.
If we want our graduates of technical majors to be specialists in the particular major, then we are giving them good grounds. Nevertheless, if we desire our graduates to have at least a certain chance to be involved in management or decision-making as it is common throughout the world, then we have to considerably change or supplement curricula. The aim for the graduate to acquire such education during his studies. In particular, we recommend to our students to take the following courses:
Managerial techniques and skills
Basic marketing
Project management
Personal management
Management information systems
Basic Law focusing on Commercial Code
Financial Accounting (exemplified by case studies)
Proceedings
Controlling
In conclusion, we would like to summarise our paper and therefore briefly answer our question. If young people want to acquire a maximum chance to find their place on the labour market, than it is necessary for them to achieve top quality education Combined, rather more eneral education so that they quickly adapt to permanent changes.
The next important thing is practice and willingness to work hard. Last but not least is knowledge of English and other world languages.
One should realise that these are only basic presumptions and they ought not to be underestimated.