adminEnia Nyakudzambara Harare Bureau
The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) has engaged government to assist on skills development to compensate for the current increase skills flight. Speaking at a meeting with stakeholders, CZI president Charles Msipa said it was imperative for the business community to invest in sharpening skills together with the government. “It is not optional for us to invest in skills training but it is part of the requirement to be a competitive player. If we don’t invest as an industry in sharpening both current and future skills requirements we are not going to improve our competitiveness” said Msipa.
Industrialists also expressed concern that the current economic environment is no longer conducive for businesses to thrive.
The industry has since partnered the National Advisory Council to identify the skills gap.
“Many players in industry are actively participating in an institution called National Manpower Advisory Council and they are actually in the process of identifying what our current skills requirements are,” said Msipa.
NAMACO is working with players from the industry to identify the current and future skills requirements and then to identify how the curriculum in higher tertiary education needs to be adjusted to provide for the future skills requirements.
Speaking at the same event, Minister of State for Liaising on Psychomotor Activities in Education Josiah Hungwe said the industry required appropriately trained workers.
“We want to create a new breed of workers who are well versed with appropriate skills to the industry and not those who just have academic education,” he said
Most companies have closed shop while others have significantly scaled down due to economic challenges.
The deterioration in the economy has seen capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector coming down from 44,9 percent in 2012 to 39,6 percent last year.
Online Reporter