Plan to create degree-relevant jobs for 80% of graduates

One common thread that cuts across the available literature on graduate employability is the excessive focus on the identification of skills, attributes and competencies that are thought to drive and facilitate graduate employability.

Most often, studies on the subject revolve around the need for graduates to have additional attributes, competencies, and skills on top of the subject or discipline knowledge they are required to have at the completion of their studies if they want to guarantee job placement.

The greater emphasis on skills, attributes and competencies as influential factors of graduate employability should not come as a surprise in contexts where factors such as job creation and population growth exert limited influence on the availability of jobs.

A strengthened focus on graduate employability is also an important direction to take in contexts where the attention given to the issue and the achievements of higher education institutions along the same line have been limited.

However, an exclusive discussion on graduate employability in terms of what happens in the preparation of graduates at universities is far from reality and can undermine the effects of the broader environment in which jobs are created and acquired.

It can also put unnecessary pressure (and, of course, the blame) on higher education institutions when the goals of graduate employability are not met for reasons that are not necessarily of their own making.

Despite its benefits, this myopic conceptualisation is currently forcing many universities to embark on a variety of schemes designed to better prepare graduates for the workplace – schemes that extend from curricular reviews to work-integrated learning experiences.

However, equal consideration should be given to the influence of a plethora of socio-demographic and economic factors that explain the challenges of graduate employability.

Patterns of employment

Ethiopia’s economy is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with a significant growth rate of two digits for more than a decade-and-a-half. This growth has been accompanied by the growth of its labour force and the economically active population.

According to information from the ministry of labour and social affairs, the overall profile of the Ethiopian labour force shows that there are many more young people under the age of 15 years entering the workforce each year than the number of old people in the labour force.

The rate of unemployment in urban areas (16.5%) is higher than in rural areas (2%). The rate of unemployment is higher in the age group 20-24 in all the country’s urban and rural areas.

This is followed by those in the age group 15-19 years (23.1%) and 25-29 years (17.2%). The available data indicate that unemployment remains a serious problem, especially for the youth and females.

In terms of sector, the employment status in urban Ethiopia is divided among self-employment (41.44%), the private sector (20.16%), and the government sector (14.29%). Of the total working population, 49% is paid employees.

In terms of occupation, the largest group belongs to the service sector.

Private investment and regulatory framework

Despite the rapid economic change, the weak participation of the private sector in the economy has been identified as one of the major concerns in the creation of jobs in Ethiopia.

Research indicates that the growth of the private sector is inhibited by a variety of factors, including access to credit, access to land, high taxes, and inefficient legal systems for contract enforcement.

The rate of expansion of the manufacturing sector, which is expected to create huge job opportunities, is also considered to be very slow, even though foreign direct investment flows to the sector is growing.

Research has also identified the limitation in the structure and development of the financial sector as an instrument for building productive capacity as another major problem.

The limited number of private banks available, the stringent rules and regulations under which they operate, and the high collateral demands they set, bureaucratic inefficiencies, lack of timely decision, lack of better technologies and methods are similarly identified by researchers as factors that inhibit the allocation of credit to investors and, hence, the creation of jobs through investment.

Government reforms and initiatives

The Ethiopian government has lately been undertaking different reforms to address the employment challenges the country is facing. This includes encouraging privatisation as a means of economic growth and job creation.

Such efforts include attempts to attract large-scale foreign direct investment through the expansion of industrial parks and the opening of key economic sectors in telecommunications, energy, aviation and logistics for private foreign participation.

Another government initiative geared towards the creation of jobs is the establishment of the national investment and job creation steering committee led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to create three million jobs per annum and improve the investment climate.

The government appears to realise that improvements in the investment climate and doing business will help not only in the creation of jobs but also in addressing past failures and weaknesses in attracting investment, which is key to job creation.

The initiative aims to address major bottlenecks in attracting foreign direct investment, such as poor investment climate and regulation-related problems.

Institutional strategies

Within the education sector, both Ethiopia’s 2019 Higher Education Proclamation and education sector plans recognise the importance of graduates with the appropriate skills, technical knowledge, competencies, and work-ready attitudes that would help them succeed in the labour market.

Through the ministry of science and higher education, the government has embarked on a new plan to improve the employment of university graduates with an annual target of creating degree-relevant employment for 80% or above.

The mismatch between the supply of graduates and labour market opportunities and the limited cooperation that exists between industries and universities are seen as major challenges that universities are expected to address by designing strategies that strengthen these links.

With a newly introduced national labour market information system developed by the ministry of labour and social affairs, one would hope that things might move in the right direction.

The delivery plans set for universities assume that strategies need to be implemented with existing capacities, resources and with a focus on those tasks that can have the most impact.

Such tasks include improvements in student learning in the classroom, in the areas of teacher competencies, performance and motivation and linkage with industry and support to students through meaningful internship experiences.

Toward a holistic understanding of employability

The Ethiopian context is perhaps a good example of the difficulties of an exclusive focus on using mastering skills and competencies at universities as an indicator of graduate employability.

Expecting Ethiopian universities to ensure an employment rate of 80% per year for their graduates cannot be an easy task in the face of the variety of factors that can affect the success of such an ambitious plan.

Among others, factors such as national patterns of employment, level of private participation in investment, and regulatory frameworks have their own influence in the creation and availability of jobs.

No matter what happens at the level of universities, these factors will certainly continue to influence the success of graduates.

Hence, graduate employability in the context of the developing world cannot be exclusively judged in terms of what happens at the level of universities but should also be examined through a consideration of the pertinent components of employment that provide a holistic understanding of the challenge.

It needs no mention that the same thinking is required in addressing the increasing challenges of graduate employability.

Wondwosen Tamrat is an associate professor and founding president of St Mary’s University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a collaborating scholar of the Programme for Research on Private Higher Education at the State University of New York at Albany, United States, and coordinator of the private higher education sub-cluster of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa. He may be reached at preswond@smuc.edu.et or wondwosen@gmail.com.