Who is to blame for a poor workforce?

The government has over the years been investing heavily in capacity building in order to improve service delivery. Therefore, it comes as a surprise that many public workers have exhibited high levels of incompetence that it has now captured the attention of the National Assembly.The Public Service Commission (PSC), charged with recruitment of civil servants, is today perplexed by their poor performance yet they had scored highly in the recruitment exams where they met the minimum threshold of 70 per cent.This outcome surely is worrying and brings many questions to the surface; is there some serious flaw in the vetting committees or have candidates managed to find loopholes in the whole system?Could the dismal performance by some public workers be reflective of our education system that has seen countless changes and remodeling? Many employers have complained of the poor quality of fresh graduates who are not yet ready for the job market.The era of preparing students to be pen pushers should give way to modeling future technocrats with more emphasis on apprenticeship and hands-on training. Even future bureaucrats should first have sufficient spells on the floor in order to earn valuable experience before graduating to the upper floors of leadership.Even though the PSC has promised Parliament to probe the reasons behind the worrying trend, it should partner with education stakeholders, and, if necessary, re-invent the wheel.The issue of a poorly prepared workforce is not exclusive to the public sector, it has also given managers in the private sector many sleepless nights, so it’s time a quick but sustainable solution is found.

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Who is to blame for a poor workforce?