Will technical and vocational education address skills gap?

The demand for a technically skilled and business savvy African labour force, which is essential to stimulating equitable development, generate well-paying jobs and raise living standards, has continued to trigger the rapid development of African tertiary education.

The need to transform post-school education has for long been recognised by many governments in Africa, including Uganda through the Ministry of Education and Sports through university education and vocational training.

For instance, according to the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) policy of Uganda of 2018, an ideal TVET System is an employer-led skills development structure anchored on research, policy and strategic planning. It is based on analysis of needs and priorities of the labour market, which then informs the development of job profiles, standards, qualifications, and curriculum development.

And yet currently, TVET does not address the shortage of practical skills required in the economy for income generation. The training emphasises educational certificates instead of skills and competencies. The delivery methods are largely academic -oriented as opposed to a flexible work oriented environment. This has led to loss of economic productivity, competitiveness and accordingly unemployment and/or underemployment.

Based on current trends, 59 per cent of 20-24-year-olds in sub-Saharan Africa will complete secondary education in 2030, compared to 42 per cent in 2012. This translates into 137 million young people with secondary education and 12 million with tertiary education by 2030.

Ironically, the most educated confront a mismatch between their training and available employment opportunities. While 26 per cent of students enrolled in university in Africa study humanities, only 2 per cent of students are enrolled in agricultural programmes.

Moreover, government and donor investments in agricultural education and training have become negligible since the early 1990s, yet this is a sector that is providing food, employing larger proportion of the population as well as the largest export and foreign exchange earnings for the continent.

Tertiary education and research institutions through practical skills training, play a critical role in developing the right quality of human resources, new knowledge, technologies and innovations required to transform the continent’s economy and improve service delivery.

However, the tertiary education sector in Africa faces critical challenges. It has rapidly expanded yet there is limited infrastructure to deliver quality teaching and learning, research and outreach for community transformation.

Staff capacity is limited in terms of staff to students’ ratio, qualification in terms of PhD training, shortage of technicians, ageing senior academics, capacity to conduct research for development that directly impacts communities and economies.

Most of the continent’s tertiary education institutions are isolated and yet could share and leverage existing human resources and infrastructure within the continent to build their own capacity. It is, therefore, imperative to increase investment in tertiary education to strengthen the production of the required human resources at all levels and technology and innovation generation.

Higher education partnerships are also important enabling mechanisms for African tertiary education institutions to share resources and experiences to fulfil their mandate.
Recognising the untapped potential returns to investment from and challenges that Africa’s tertiary education sector faces, the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture, a network of 121 universities in 38 countries in African, developed the African Universities’ Agenda for Agricultural Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation.

Ms Agena is the communications and advocacy specialist – Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).
Twitter: @maureenagena