Graduates must play their part

The government is doing everything to have more job creators than seekers, as well as create a pool of graduates that can grab the available jobs before they fly off to foreign countries. Even with this vision, we are yet to get started and I think graduates have a bigger role to play in changing the face of this coin and here are my reasons why.

The first thing students complain about is the education system, highlighting how they have more theoretical learning than practice and sighting that if they studied in better universities, they would be more competitive at creating bankable businesses or become potential employees of big companies.

Today, the world is a global village and with Rwanda leading in the Internet connectivity space, graduates and university students have access to the Internet. Courses from Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), among many other universities, are online and if someone took time to learn from them, they are equally educated as many of the students in the best universities. If a student is serious enough, they would make use of this free pool of knowledge online.

In foreign countries, students who have just graduated are willing to take unpaid internships in a big company with hope to gain more knowledge as well as build on their experience. With Rwandan graduates, they want to get the best job in a telecom company, bank or the government. When they are faced with an opportunity to do an internship or a job that is of low pay with chances of increase in pay and promotion, they don’t want to take it.

They put their pride before the essentials of the job market, which are skills and experience.

A very good example of this is kLab. It’s an open tech innovation space that nurtures young ICT talent. When one has a bankable idea that they can turn into a sustainable business, they are welcomed.

A few companies have sprouted from there and grown to employ more than 30 staff and today, are even paying a significant amount of revenue to the government in taxes. Well, what about the bigger portion of the rest. They pitch an idea worth pursuing and get started on it. Then they find a quick job to be done for Rwf 1m. They dump their project and run for this. The level of patience that is needed by an entrepreneur is also an aspect that is greatly lacking.

Unlike many economies, the Rwandan market is very young with a lot of untapped segments. Any serious hardworking person can’t fail to get a niche in the market, which is a unique chance for graduates here as it’s not something that is common in other markets.

They say opportunity only makes sense to the one that is ready to grab it. Before any external effects determine the success of many graduates, I think the graduates themselves need to prepare themselves. This is a growing economy with limitless potential and it is to be built by non other than the youth. They need to play their part.

patrick.buchana@newtimes.co.rw

Education alone can’t fix unemployment

I have often sat in debates with friends who always blame graduates or anyone with an education for that matter, for their fate – unemployment - and I think it’s a reason they’ll continue with this argument for years to come.

However, I find it unacceptable to agree with their idea because education alone can’t fix unemployment.

There are various issues surrounding graduates’ unemployment which include employers’ demands for work experience, taxation policies for start-ups, lack of employer’s incentives and poor economic performance, among others.

How these favour the labour market is left to be seen. I have sat in conferences where rich guys tell us how they started from scratch and they are now millionaires - as they add self-help books to their array of achievements.

However, they’ll skip the part of the social and economic context under which they built their empires.

In the end, they end up being gratified as excellent writers and orators but with no practical solutions to any of the unemployment problems. Education shouldn’t be blamed for failing to fix graduate unemployment, rather the obstacles to solving the issue need to be addressed and concerned parties need to accept their responsibility in solving these problems.

Graduates want to work but it depends on whose terms they’ll do it. Higher institutions of learning have introduced all sorts of entrepreneurial studies to enable employment and self-employment but these alone can’t be a solution.

Not everyone will be able to get a white-collar job and no one wants to settle for less after hustling through school. What use is a job that can’t even pay for a shirt? This is where we get lectures on being entrepreneurs, but are graduates ready for it? Is it attractive and does it make sense in all fields of study?

All graduates hear is ‘study and get an office job, learn how to write a good CV, target corporate companies’ but no one ever tells them ‘study and be an entrepreneur’. The skills needed in the labour market go beyond formal education. The education system needs to support employment skills development, career management learning and entrepreneurship and innovation. Such skills are not only obtained in formal education, and this needs to be recognised by higher education institutions and employers alike.

It is only when we shift our narrow perspective of looking at education as the only way to get a certain level of expertise that we will recognise the need to discuss education reforms together with the needs of society. This vital discussion will help in reforming levels of graduates’ unemployment.

dean.karemera@newtimes.co.rw