If you’re one of the 200,000 students in campus, there is a danger looming in the very near future, the banana peel on the pavement of your career aspirations. Scientists call it … the Skills Gap. But this calamity-in-waiting is of Rift Valley proportions.
Like you, and your folks and your shosh back in the village (whether you’re from Buru or Bukura), I believed that all I had to do was get good grades and finish. The place of honor for my graduation photo had been prepared long before the day. Let me tell you, the cap and gown, the four to six years of CATs, research papers and group-work (the absolute worst thing about campo life) do not quite add up to make you a qualified and valued member of your chosen profession.
According to the venerable Federation of Kenyan Employers (FKE), majority of fresh graduates from Kenya’s institutions of higher learning are, in a word, half-baked. I find that term a bit insulting but I am sure they should know a ripe from a raw one. They say that there is a big difference between all the stuff you learnt in school and the real, real world which is their domain. Add to this the proliferation of ‘graduates’ who bought, cheated and slept their way to commencement and you’ve got a mélange that would give a veteran HR manager a headache. Too much emphasis on theory and not enough application. And practicum/attachment/internship just isn’t cutting it especially if the take away is how to play mahjong, “data entry” and making microwave tea.
Beyond technical knowledge, Kenyan youth lack so-called soft skills; critical thinking and adaptability. 16 years of reading to pass exams rather being encouraged to be inquisitive and innovative have made us ill fitted for the vagaries of life.
The struggle is real for the hustlers. An entrepreneur should possess the requisite skill for each part of the business before you can afford to hire others to do it for you. So if you want to be a designer, you’ll need the business skills to plan your investments, the communication and marketing skills to get investors and buyers on board, bookkeeping skills to keep track of accounts and inventory, and the human resource know-how to manage employees. Not to mention the grit and conman-radar to survive these streets.
There is a third type of skills gap common in countries with high levels of literacy like ours. Young people have started to shun technical courses leading to a drought of artisans and technicians. Yet 80 percent of available jobs in Kenya are in the informal sector. We think that white collar is better, that working with your hands is somehow shameful. So no one wants to be a mason, a welder, an electrician or a tailor. Those who do these jobs must have been failures at life. Lest we forget, these “blue collar” functions are just as necessary to sustain civilization. As a result, courses in humanities and business studies are very lucrative. Technical Universities (formerly known as polytechnics) and private colleges have changed to keep up with market demand.
So far, most if not all efforts to bridge the divide have been made by employers. Partnerships with public and private universities to provide state of the art equipment and training to ensure that there are graduates can meet the needs in the industry. A happy result of this is that Kenya is a hub for advances in mobile telephony and software development. Employers are also the richest source of mentorship for students and graduates since those within the industry are best placed to induct the up-and-comers into the real world.
Several other companies have established graduate trainee programs, which identify and recruit future employees from different fields of study related to their needs. The trainees then receive custom training adapted to the respective company and are a ready source of skilled talent.
What can you do/are you doing to eliminate your personal skills gap? Take charge!
Campo 