Zimbabwe's youth bearing the brunt of an inflexible education system

Youth unemployment continues to be a major problem in this Zimbabwe, where youths who constitute a large proportion of the population are still without gainful employment. While several explanations have been offered to explain this phenomenon, I believe these reasons, no matter the supposed justification, are red herrings that do not adequately address the issue of youth unemployment.

In the last couple of years, the story of Africa rising has been well documented, as the emerging markets outperformed most established western markets. With an annual inflation rate which is lower than her regional peers, as well as a relatively higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate than regional counterparts, Zimbabwe too has in a sense, been rising.

The unfortunate paradox that the largest population sub-group in the country still represents the largest strata of those unemployed, however still exists. This renders whatever positive strides that have been made irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, as unemployed youths could potentially present risks of social upheavals within the country`s fragile economy.

There is something fundamentally wrong with our education system, which places a significantly greater emphasis on the lustre of white-collar jobs.  In most cases, non-white collar jobs are looked down upon, as most young people dream of completing their tertiary education and joining the corporate world.  Sadly, this dream is never realised as the hard truths of a stagnant economy not creating enough jobs for its young people gently sets in. This ultimately leads to a high number of educated youths who cannot find jobs.

One may even question the much ranted about high literacy rate Zimbabwe has, given the high numbers of people who fell prey  to various illegal pyramid schemes and lost money to these sham institutions, McDowells and Geozing scandals being examples. This signifies that this literacy may not be translating into financial literacy for instance. The failure of most graduates to be innovative enough and apply themselves meaningfully in their respective fields of study to counter the adverse effects of a non-performing job market, points out the gaping holes in the structure of our education system.  With all the qualifications and certificates the youths are garnering, these nonetheless are failing to translate into tangible upshots on the ground.

This evidently calls for a paradigm shift in our approach to the problem of youth unemployment. Technical education that equips our youths with relevant skills in a developing economy like ours should be embraced. It makes no sense for the country to keep on churning out accountants, risk managers as well as bankers when our economy clearly lacks the capacity to absorb this vast number of graduates, ultimately leading to the phenomenon of the educated unemployed. While there is nothing wrong with one choosing to be an accountant, the cold hard truth remains, that Zimbabwe`s economy is suppressed and cannot therefore generate enough jobs for its people. Moreover, the unwillingness and somewhat, failure by the government to acknowledge the severity of unemployment in the country as a whole, also beggars belief as to how the powers that be are in denial. This, on the back of recent comments by the Minister of Finance that the unemployment numbers where overstated. Evidence on the ground however, points to the contrary.

The Ministry of Youth and Indigenisation has been noting the low uptake in the funds directed towards financing various initiatives the youths want to venture into. One of the reasons for this I believe, is because of the inflexibility of the country`s education system. As a result, innovation in the youths is stifled as they only acquire highly bookish knowledge, which cannot be applied in the real world, in their many years of education at the country`s schools. This leads to the young people failing to come up with feasible projects which are bankable; hence the few people who apply for this government funding are turned away.

In the same way as most of us will not be medical surgeons, or engineers, we all cannot be employed in the formal sector. Yet it seems our education system has failed to recognise this simple truth. It is a fallacy for anyone to think that merely having a university certificate guarantees one`s employment in an economy like ours, or any other economy for that matter. The youths are faced not only with a system, but a society that pushes them to complete their formal education and get a white-collar job. This also could explain the increase in many unemployed youths who have been left behind by a system that fails to acknowledge their gifting in other spheres like sport, art and several other technical areas.

Young people are an important cog of our economy, and attention should be given to the problems they face. Any economic growth that is not inclusive of our country`s youths comes out to nought. Sadly this is something Africa as a whole seems to be overlooking. It is estimated that about 60% of Africa`s population is under the age of 24, the same dominating the labour market yet paradoxically, the youths are the population sub-group with the most unemployed people. Governments must step in to make the cost of hiring young inexperienced youths lower through youth employment subsidies. However, this is alone is not adequate, as the formal sector is overstretched as is, with low capacity utilisation in industries, chronic liquidity challenges as well as  muted domestic demand.

Investment into the youths to prepare them sufficiently to cope in the rapidly changing world needs to be stepped up an ante. Training in Agriculture, and other non-conventional technical fields cannot continue to be overlooked, as these could possibly be a way of addressing the problem of youth unemployment in the country. Furthermore, the education system needs to be re-evaluated to ensure it remains relevant.  Focus should not continue to be placed only on formal education, but technical education should be recognised too, as an important tool for tackling youth unemployment.

Much of this argument rests on what the government and society needs to do for the youths, but that would be a greatly misleading notion. At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the young people to own their problems, and apply themselves to finding solutions for the advancement of their lives. It will be futile to keep looking towards politicians to come up with solutions. As has been witnessed the world over, governments have failed to make any meaningful headway in addressing unemployment. Platforms where youths interact and collectively proffer solutions to the problems they face should be encouraged, and support from the local communities as well as civil society and ultimately, the government will be crucial in coming up with solutions to the scourge of youth unemployment.