Mauritius Needs Career Guidance Before Students Choose a Degree

At 15 or 16, young people in Mauritius are expected to choose subjects or a future career, a decision that career-development consultant Kesho Gooriah says should come later. Gooriah, founder of Soft Skills Consultants (Mauritius) Ltd, told Defimedia that students who select studies first can face frustration, disengagement and costly changes of direction.

The Defimedia interview supplies no vacancy, salary, hiring, unemployment, graduate-employment or layoff figures, and it cites no sample, survey method or revision schedule. Its recommendations therefore cannot establish a national labor-market trend or supply sector- and role-level hiring comparisons; they present one consultant’s diagnosis and proposed remedies.

What does a skills shortage actually mean?

Gooriah draws a distinction between employer demand and candidate willingness. “We must distinguish between a shortage of skills and a shortage of people willing to accept the conditions offered,” she said. If qualified people exist but reject the offer, she says, the cause may lie in remuneration, working conditions or unrealistic job expectations.

Her recommended employer response is concrete: review salary competitiveness, job requirements, turnover and recruitment practices before declaring skills unavailable. A genuine shortage, she argues, requires evidence rather than assumptions. For an individual candidate, that distinction matters because an apparent qualification gap may coexist with weak pay, poor conditions or unrealistic expectations.

What does skills mismatch mean?

Skills mismatch, in Gooriah’s definition, exists when available labor-market skills do not meet employer expectations. It can include a missing technical qualification, but it can also mean a person holds the right degree yet lacks essential soft skills such as communication, teamwork, adaptability or problem-solving. A second mismatch occurs when students choose careers that do not fit their interests, abilities, personality or motivations.

Why should career guidance start before university?

She recommends reversing the sequence for students at 15 or 16: understand oneself, explore careers, then choose studies. A structured review asks three questions:

• Which interests, personality traits, abilities and motivations define the student?
• Which careers fit that profile and offer viable opportunities?
• Which educational pathways provide the required qualifications and training?

Career exploration should also cover what professionals do each day, their working environment, required capabilities and how opportunities may evolve. Structured assessments, professional counselling and exposure to occupations can support that process; online tools can add insight into occupational interests and personality preferences.

Gooriah also calls career guidance a continuous developmental activity rather than an occasional intervention. It should remain available to every student regardless of family income. Government, schools and employers could subsidize assessments and counselling, arrange workplace visits and provide mentoring.

Parents should support informed decisions rather than impose career choices. Students should also recognize that university is not the only route: technical education, apprenticeships and professional qualifications can provide equally meaningful opportunities.

Where does career guidance fit beyond school?

The same framework extends beyond school. Gooriah describes career development as lifelong and says it can support students, graduates, employees seeking advancement and professionals changing careers, particularly as technology transforms work. Employers and educators can improve decisions by sharing information on emerging occupations, practical experience and changing skill requirements, potentially reducing mismatch and strengthening Mauritius’s human capital.

What should employers and schools measure together?

Employers, in her view, must move beyond complaining that graduates lack workplace readiness. Educational institutions and businesses should jointly identify required technical and human capabilities, including communication, teamwork, problem-solving, adaptability and critical thinking. Internships, workplace projects, mentoring and employer participation in curriculum design can strengthen employability.

Success should not be measured by the number of people trained. Gooriah instead recommends five outcome measures:

• Graduate employment rates
• Time required to secure employment
• Employer satisfaction
• Job retention
• Actual workplace performance

Those indicators would test whether collaboration changes outcomes, rather than merely counting people trained. The interview supplies no baseline against which future improvement can be measured.

What should workers do when technology changes their options?

For unemployed graduates and workers affected by technological change, Gooriah rejects another qualification as the automatic first step. A structured career review should assess interests, transferable skills, existing capabilities and emerging labor-market opportunities.

Targeted training or micro-credentials may fill specific competency gaps; further study should follow only when genuinely necessary. A career transition may be better when interests, capabilities or opportunities have changed substantially.

Her advice to parents is to ask what genuinely interests a young person and which careers that person has explored, then guide rather than decide. Her message to students is blunt: “Don’t start by choosing a degree. Start by discovering who you are.” A career represents thousands of hours, she says, which makes an informed choice consequential.

If Mauritius implements the framework, the near-term test is not how many people receive training but whether graduate employment rates rise, job-finding time falls, retention improves and employers report better performance. The interview provides no target or forecast, so any gain remains an outcome to verify rather than a promised result.