Rethinking the employment question: Understanding the role of education in the employment equation

“That education is one the few sure roads to economic progress is a contemporary creed. But there are too few facts with which to support this faith and stated in the usual way it is far too vague.” It is public secret that the contribution of our education to the employment world is quite questionable. Public dialogue across the country has suggested skill mismatch (possession of jobs that are not compatible with the available jobs) as one of the lead factors for youth unemployment predicament. The question is, are the highly prized Universities prescribing the right doze for tens of thousands churned out every year? 

Youth unemployment in Uganda is an old song despite the various initiatives intended to alleviate it and almost all stakeholders seem to be in chorus agreement that there’s need for an overhaul of the education system to suit the needs of the labor market. Now the real cause of the job mismatch that perpetuates employment problems among youth graduates is that those who qualify to join (TVET) vocational training also qualify to attend Universities and obviously prefer the latter because of better wages and status. What is more dramatic is the paradox that the surplus of highly qualified professionals (whose skills are by the way seldom used effectively) is what causes the shortage of persons with critical skills that are badly needed in Uganda like all other developing worlds. A medical specialist for example may not be comfortable doing the most routine medical check-ups that a nurse would very easily do notwithstanding that we may need more community health workers. We graduate more MBAs and social workers and force them into entrepreneurship that is more necessity driven(to make some money) than opportunity driven (identifying a gap); which explains why many of our start-ups don’t live to celebrate their second anniversary. 

Statistics seem to suggest that the population of the Ugandan youth is bulging (with more than 70% below 30 years) and so employment is largely a supply problem. However this seems to be a misdiagnosis of the actual challenge; the Asian tigers like china for instance have leveraged their population to succeed economically. I don’t mean to discount the need to harness a demographic dividend, but how we increase the productivity of this enormously growing labor force is the whole point. 

Policy makers assert that what we need is a systemic transformation of education from training professional clerks, teachers and lawyers to skilling more sub-professional (through vocational training &apprenticeship) personnel like draughtsman, technicians and nurses. This path should however be walked cautiously; such vocational training should be focused on those particular sectors that will spur production and increase jobs. Such sectors as the ones with high value chain and inherently labor intensive. This is at least what the commonly referenced Singapore and Malysia have done; evidence shows that it works. And so the idea in this piece is to initiate debate on how to make the education system conformist and not rely solely on benchmarking from alien economies.The education system is not bad in itself but it is not tailored to meet the needs of the economy.

My proposition is to incentivize TVET (Technical and Vocational training) to attract the brilliant minds that flow into universities to vocational schools.  In Germany for instance, students attend a dual education system enabling them to receive high quality vocational training and entering the job market at a young age and with the right skill. Unfortunately, there has been inadequate dialogue about the  existing group of graduates who are already out of training institutions as well as those past the age of entering leaning halls. What is the plan for them?  

The bottom-line is that we need to restructure the old colonial system. Fifty years back we needed it to fill gaps in administration and sectors left by our departing colonizers. Right now we a more robust system that fosters innovation and enterprise; the only challenge is to specify the right sectors and training needed. Like Gerald Meier says, it’s a “Jigsaw puzzle the only problem being that the old puzzle has to been torn down and the new puzzle has not been constructed”. Until we take serious strides about this kind of transformation, we shall continue to struggle with the symptoms of unemployment- urban crime, political violence name it. And all efforts adopted will not yield, we shall only be chasing after a white elephant.

Enock jjumba Ssentongo
Economic Hub Uganda
P.O Box 1337, Kampala- Uganda | Tel +256779373114/+256703744999 |
 Email:economichubuganda@gmail.com;