New challenges of global education: precondition for social welfare or threat to labor market?

The centuries-long struggle for the right to education has come to face other challenges in the age of globalized networks and assumed equal opportunities. Despite the popularization of universities and introduction of common standards called to simplify student mobility and mutual recognition of study certificates/diplomas, higher education no longer represents a general precondition for social equality, welfare or guarantee, given the increasing supply of high-skilled professionals and decreasing demand on the labor market. Recent tendencies and interest in mass education in relatively popular disciplines result in the overproduction of qualified specialists without meeting the hiring capacities of the global market. Former insurmountable barriers towards world markets are eliminated now due to different waves and aspects of globalization. To withstand the ever-growing competition and the evolving tendencies, it is essential to have an approximate vision for the choice of one’s future profession bearing in mind that it should go beyond national borders and employ the concept of becoming a “global employee.” Pursuing this goal, a huge gap appears between the younger and older generations that had to undergo various stages of transformation influenced by geopolitical and socio-economic changes, technological development and market requirements. A graduate from a country with a developing economy, having received a degree from a prestigious university abroad, has to face the problem of migration, because in the majority of cases the home country is not capable of offering a well-paid position to such a high-skilled specialist with immense potential, labeling the applicant as overqualified for the local job market. The opposite phenomenon deals with another negative aspect of mass education, which degrades the interest in services and handicraft, thus making the roustabout jobs more popular and better paid. As the modern issues of higher education and the demands of the labor market are gradually increasing, it is of vital importance to combine the efforts of the international community so that to mend these drawbacks and find appropriate solutions to sustainable development of such major social problems.