Soft skills in the tertiary sector in Morocco: What perception of the leaders?

Abstract

In this article, we present the perception of Moroccan leaders in the tertiary sector on soft skills. Our interest in this subject is explained by the importance of soft skills in the employability of the young laureates. From now on, recruiters are no longer satisfied with technical skills but are looking for these transversal skills known as "soft skills" (Theurelle-Stein & Barth, 2016) ; (Bouret et al., 2018) ; (Cimatti, 2016).

This craze in the labor market for soft skills has prompted the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Management Training, in its report n ° 5 (CSEFRS, 2019), to introduce a new reform oriented towards the development of soft skills. The goal is to equip graduates with these behavioral skills required by recruiters. With this in mind, we conducted an exploratory study as an inventory of soft skills in the tertiary market at the national level.

The axes of our survey relate to : raising awareness, mobilizing and developing soft skills at work; the role of soft skills in career development, competitiveness and employability.

The quantitative aspect of our work provides statistical data for a scientific assessment of this topic rarely addressed by Moroccan researchers. The results obtained show the growing awareness of the importance of soft skills in Moroccan companies, particularly those in the private sector. In addition, this finding is more pronounced among young leaders. Our study allowed us to list the types of soft skills most in demand in the Moroccan tertiary sector, which will help target the skills to be developed in future graduates during their academic studies.

JEL Classification: O15

Paper type : Empirical research.