Well done City of Kigali but…

“It is your attitude, not your aptitude that determines your altitude,” by Zig Ziglar. I wish to add my voice of gratitude to the management of the City of Kigali for recent initiatives. The Management realised the deficiencies and the poor reading culture in schools and it launched the reading and writing festivals in Kigali schools which have been ongoing for the past three months and the campaign will be crowned during the education summit to be hosted by the same institution on June 11, 2013, according to Hope Tumukunde Gasatura, the Vice-Mayor in charge of social affairs. This is a very good initiative that should be emulated by other local government leaders in their respective jurisdictions. Another related progressive initiative by City of Kigali is the setting up of Kigali Employment Service Centre. As quoted from the various media outlets some of the main objectives of this centre are to link jobseekers with prospective employers as well as prepare or equip young graduates with skills like how to prepare ‘selling’ Curriculum Vitae, preparing for the job interviews and other skills to equip jobseekers. However, on the deep analysis, the intent and purpose of this centre raises a lot of questions than answers. I will begin with the name itself “Kigali Employment Service Centre.” One of the major challenges that we have is the type of education that prepares us to be jobseekers than job creators. In my view, the employment centre comes to reinforce this poor mind-set and upholding the status-quo of where graduates feel will have to be employed instead of seeking alternatives through job creation endeavors. Again by setting up this centre City authorities are proving (rightly so) the incompetence of our universities to do their job, and the education system by extension! Apart from connecting job seekers to prospective employers, the other skills provided at the centre ought to have been acquired during the course of one’s education notably at the university or other related training institutions. Unfortunately, our universities have compromised quality due to commercial interests and hence we have many graduates who can hardly prepare their own CVs! This is what Mahmood Mamdani one of the greatest contemporary scholars once called Financially Generated Degrees (FGDs)! Anyhow, deficiencies and challenges of our education system go beyond the focus of this write-up. Back to the Kigali Employment Service Centre; my submission is that the idea is not bad, but more needs to be done. For example, to offset the job seeking mind-set could the name be changed to something like “Kigali Information Service Centre or Kigali Skills Development Centre?” I am emphasising something like skills centre because, in my view, the facility should look at empowering these young people with life skills beyond job seeking. For example, could the centre focus on values like empowering these youngsters with entrepreneurship skills and knowledge? Could this centre be a cradle of creativity and innovation where unemployed young people could develop their creativity and excellent ideas are rewarded? Could it be a place to equip the youth with skills like business development plans? Could the youth learn skills on how to form youth cooperatives through which these young graduates could acquire small scale loans to offset businesses? Could this centre be used as a meeting point where different successful professionals and business leaders meet, talk and inspire these young men and women through experience sharing? Could these centres be used for mindset change I say mindset because throughout our education journeys, our mindset is that someone has to employ us. In the words of Harv Eker “If you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots. If you want to change the visible, you must change the invisible.” In our context, the invisibility that we need to change is our mindset due to education that trains us to be employed without an iota of job creation skills. We end up in bitter frustrations when we don’t get our dream jobs and the cycle goes and on…. It is true that some of our graduates lack employable skills, but the challenge of unemployment goes beyond lack of information in the labour market that the centre seeks to address. If the current unemployment rate stands at 10% in Kigali (I believe this figure excludes disguised and underemployment rates), then it’s evident that more efforts should be focused towards job creation. I believe that in other countries, especially in the West, employment centres are more relevant because unemployment rates are low compared to developing countries like Rwanda. Kigali authorities as the vision bearer of the youth centre will need to engage other partners like banks to expand on the scope and activities of the centre. Through initiatives like corporate social responsibility, companies should support this noble initiative by sponsoring relevant and innovative strategies that would help reduce unemployment rates in the country. Universities need to do their job properly, they need to educate and empower students with relevant employable skills. I would like to conclude by, once again, thanking the management of the City of Kigali for the courageous step towards addressing the issue of unemployment. But this is a drop in the ocean; more institutions should join in to expand on the scope and mandate of this great initiative. The writer is an educationist, author and publisher.