The next important political issue

One candidate promised to create 12 million jobs in four years and another said that it was impossible but that it was important to invest in education to create jobs. The one who advocated the creation of 12 million jobs lost the election.

Here in Zimbabwe, the issue is not how many jobs a party can promise can be created but that the means to create jobs has to be emphasised and put in place. In the US, the winner of the presidential election appealed to the country’s citizens to double their efforts to invest in education and technology to create opportunities for the young people.

In Zimbabwe’s economic environment, it is the use of our natural resources that can turn around the economy for the benefit of the people.
In some countries like Germany, it is what they call parallel education system which the US is now adopting. In this German system, there is the academic and the technical or technology system running parallel to each other. In case some people may not be aware, it was the system that was adopted at independence in Zimbabwe which was called education with production.

Why was this system allowed to deteriorate in preference for white-collar jobs? It was because factories started to close during Esap which downgraded efforts on production but promoted imports or what was termed opening the country to free trade.

What became market economy led to the downgrading of promoting the local production activities to supply goods on the local market but, instead, to import goods which rendered education with production valueless.

Are our efforts being made to go back to the system of parallel education of emphasising technical or technological education as well as academic education? The answer is a lukewarm yes.

The emphasis is still on academic education. Those that opt for technical education are not even finding attachments for a year that they are expected to spend gaining practical experience.

Not only that, after completing their courses, they are unemployable. The next avenue left for them is to go abroad where their skills are in demand and Zimbabwe, where they got their education, is left to rely on imports for their domestic market.

One university electronics engineer is now working in a supermarket on a till machine while he waits for an opportunity to leave the country.
At one university, nearly all their technical graduates left the country within two years of completing their degrees.
What opportunities can be created for our technical graduates within Zimbabwe?

That is one of the issues that must be addressed in the forthcoming general election.
Is the policy of indigenisation providing the way forward to address the lack of opportunity for our young graduates to go into the productive sector? The answer is a big YES. Indigenisation cannot be just about the transfer of shares but should work towards the transfer of technology to arm the local graduates with skills not just to be used in the present entities but to create other industries.

Recently, there was a profile of a Zimbabwe-educated engineer who runs a South African global technological company with a salary of R22 million a year. He worked in Zimbabwe but the economy could not provide him with any technological challenges.

There could be many Zimbabweans that are plying their trade elsewhere outside our borders. What is amazing is that Zimbabwe has many technologically educated graduates, even in Government, such as our Deputy Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara, and yet our technical graduates cannot find employment to uplift the conditions of living of our people.