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Felex Share Harare Bureau
THE government is inviting all those who graduated from tertiary colleges since 1980 to forward their names for possible employment in several African countries with which it has signed agreements for labour exportation. Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Deputy Minister Godfrey Gandawa yesterday said a database of the graduates was being created for possible job placements both abroad and locally when opportunities arise.
He said the government would financially benefit from the arrangement as the receiving countries would pay a certain amount, as well as cater for the welfare of the exported staff. The development was well received by teachers’ unions who said apart from commercially benefiting government, the move would promote “brain circulation” on the continent.
Zimbabwe’s has the highest literacy rate in Africa with its graduates highly sought after all over the world.
Brain circulation benefitted countries like India, which witnessed a large-scale deliberate emigration of engineers from its premier engineering institutes in the 1960s, only for them to return in the 90s as prospects improved markedly. The Asian countries’ massive development is also attributed to this circular movement of skilled labour.
With Zimbabwe faced with an unemployment rate of 11 percent, according to the latest Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency report, many countries in Africa have expressed interest in recruiting local graduates.
Gandawa said the government had seen it fit to assist thousands of jobless graduates, while it worked on various ways of creating employment as espoused in Zim-Asset.
“We’re coming up with a policy as a Ministry to help our skilled manpower get jobs because there are countries with vacancies in various fields, but our people don’t have access to those vacancies out there,” he said.
“As a ministry we’ve taken the initiative to look for the jobs in those countries. We’re still developing our human export policy and we’ve already signed memoranda of understanding with countries like South Sudan, Botswana, Angola and Namibia on that.”
Gandawa said they were working on the human export policy in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour, Public Service and Social Welfare and the Civil Service Commission.“The companies or governments employing will pay us if the policy comes to be, while workers will earn their salaries there,” he said. “In that way, Government will recoup its investment in human capital.”
The government yesterday flighted an advertisement in the press requiring the graduates to register for the database creation. “All those who graduated from universities, polytechnics or teachers colleges in Zimbabwe or graduated from any other university outside the country and working in or outside Zimbabwe should register with the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technolgy Development,” read the advert.
“Registration forms are accessible at the ministry’s head office in Harare or at any university, polytechnic or teachers college in your province.”
The forms can also be downloaded from the ministry’s website: http//www.mhtestd.gov.zw.
Online Reporter