The Star ­ Tuesday
Date: 09.08.2016
Page 15
Article size: 91 cm2
ColumnCM: 20.22
AVE: 35591.11
EXPERT
NDUNG'U KAHIHU
Let us first fix
skills mismatch
problem
One of the biggest factors for
success in a job or business is
self­confidence. For young people,
the best way to gain such is through
prior exposure to work or business.
Many developed countries have
discovered this secret and invest heavily
in preparing their youth for a role as
future employees or entrepreneurs.
We should do no less. More than 40
per cent of Kenyan businesses cite the
lack of good workers as their biggest
challenge to growth. Thousands of
youth are desperate for a job but they
cannot find one. What is the problem?
There is a clear mismatch between
the skills offered and the qualifications
required to perform the jobs available.
For instance, most employers demand
not just 'hard' technical skills and
experience but also 'soft' skills such as
honesty, punctuality, the ability to follow
orders, work in teams and learn quickly,
Yet few of our training institutions
offer this combination of skills and
even fewer of them fee) the pressure
to do so. This happens because there
is little linkage between the education
system — the skills providers and the
employers who are the skills consumers.
Universities enroll more degree
candidates than technicians while
learning opportunities in our vocational
training centres go unfilled. This has
created a system that produces many
'paper graduates' but few competent
workers. So what is the solution?
Linking youth to jobs or to starting small
businesses. The partnership between
CAP Youth Employment Institute and
The MasterCard Foundation is one such
example ­ together, we have achieved
a successful transition rate, from
unemployment to earning or further
learning, exceeding 88 percent.
The best of these innovations ought to
be mainstreamed and scaled up.
Let us bring together educators,
employers, entrepreneurs, youth and
other stakeholders under one roof
to focus specifically on finding lasting
solutions to the skills mismatch problem.
We should aim for a few results and one
big vision. First; to propose practical
ideas for bringing employers into the
classroom and educators into industry.
Secondly, to enjoin as many actors as
necessary in the task of making these
ideas work, through deliberate, intense
focus on those that have potential
to bring most benefit to youth, to
employers and to Kenya's economy,
knowing that benefiting one, ultimately
benefits all three. We have to eschew
our silo mentality; the one that says
that education, employment and
entrepreneurship are separate tracks
that should never meet. This can be
done by offering skills and support
that will help make our youth good
employees and good entrepreneurs.
The writer is an executive director, CAP
Youth Empowerment Institute
Ipsos Kenya ­ Acorn House,97 James Gichuru Road ­ Lavington ­ Nairobi ­ Kenya