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CLARIN

Students Need New Mentality, Skill Set To Enter Job Market

How the future of education, and work, look to an Argentine university rector.

Studying in Buenos Aires
Studying in Buenos Aires
Rubén Torres

-OpEd-

BUENOS AIRES — On a recent trip to New York, I saw hundreds of people of all ages waiting in line to buy the latest model of a cell phone. This device has become a person's most intimate possession. It's the main, and sometimes only, link to other people, and it's frequently updated. We live in a society that moves at a frightening pace and that demands constant change.

Anyone trying to teach children, who are used to only technology interfaces, comes up against the terrible reality that students simply don't respond to traditional teaching methods in classrooms. It looks like there's no going back.

Teachers need to immerse themselves in the learning experiment alongside their students. They need to ask their students to investigate something of interest to them and share the work they produce on social networks. This can both help students learn to discern which sites have reliable information, as well as develop the latest communication skills and, alas, even acquire knowledge.

Keeping this in mind about learning techniques in general, can physicians and healthcare workers really be trained like they have been in past decades? The discussion goes beyond the current debate about whether college education should be free or whether medical students require help learning skills like coping with exhaustion and patient violence.

Instead, we must begin by noting how the career decision-making of young people has evolved. There's more choice than ever thanks to dizzying social, technological and economic changes. Nine out of 10 children do not want to follow in their parents' professional footsteps even when they believe their parents are happy with their jobs. It's not easy making a career choice when traditional jobs like those in medicine are perceived as less prestigious and lucrative than before.

There are too many options on offer today and youngsters are becoming disoriented. Everyone wants to pursue a career that will make them happy. While a positive idea in principle, it may not only produce unmet expectations but also underestimate the efforts required to yield results. The prospect of short, easy careers is a modern fallacy in a demanding job market.

Today, young people are as intelligent as before even if they often lag in oral and written skills and have limited knowledge of history and geography. Instituting entry exams merely highlights the problem without solving it. One way to resolve this problem is for schools to offer young people what many lack today — the ability to speak, write, study, and understand texts. To acquire these skills, they must take the help offered to them.

The college degree should certify that its holder is a citizen with the theoretical and practical knowledge needed to pursue a certain profession. Master's and doctoral degrees should not be pursued lightly. They should be steps taken to further a quest for knowledge and innovation. A career is one of the most important elements in creating our personal identities. We need to have the skills to pursue it.

*Rubén Torres is a physician and chancellor of the Universidad ISALUD in Buenos Aires.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Wagner Group 2.0: Why Russia's Mercenary System Is Here To Stay

Many had predicted that the death last month of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin meant the demise of the mercenary outfit. Yet signs in recent days say the private military outfit is active again in Ukraine, a reminder of the Kremlin's interest in continuing a private fighting formula that has worked all around the world.

Photograph of a Wagner soldier in the city of Artyomovsk, holding a rifle.

Ukraine, Donetsk Region - March 24, 2023: A Wagner Group soldier guards an area in the city of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut).

TASS/ZUMA
Cameron Manley

-Analysis-

“Let’s not forget that there is no Wagner Group anymore,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had declared. “Such an organization, in our eyes, does not exist.”

The August 25 statement from came less than two days after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the infamous Russian mercenary outfit, as questions swirled about Wagner's fate after its crucial role in the war in Ukraine and other Russian military missions around the world.

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How could an independent military outfit survive after its charismatic founder's death? It seemed highly unlikely that President Vladimir Putin would allow the survival of a group after had launched a short-lived coup attempt in late June that most outside observers believe led to Prigozhin's private airplane being shot down by Russian forces on August 23.

"Wagner is over,” said the Kremlin critic and Russian political commentator Maksim Katz. “The group can’t keep going. There’s the possibility that they could continue in parts or with Defense Ministry contracts, but the group only worked with an unofficial agreement between Putin and Prigozhin.”

Yet barely a month later, and there are already multiple signs that the Wagner phoenix is rising from the ashes.

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