THE Association of Technical Universities and Polytechnics in Africa (ATUPA) is teaming up with private players to finance business proposals by students from its member states to cover the employment gap through technical and vocational skills education.
NATHAN GUMA
Governments in Africa have been struggling to create employment for their citizens, with an estimated 80% of Zimbabweans unemployed.
ATUPA, which brings together 18 countries with a mandate to support professional and skills development and technical and vocational education and training (TVET), has roped in the private sector to ensure self-sufficiency among students as soon as they leave college.
“Technical vocational education is very costly, but it is important that technical colleges make collaborations with companies for meaningful development to take place,” said Laila Aboubakar, ATUPA chairperson, in an interview with The NewsHawks.
“We have invited private partners to be part of the initiative. The youth have already started on their proposals which they will present to the corporate world and they (private sector) will fund the ones they like,” she said.
Locally, Old Mutual and StartUpAfrica have moved in to sponsor proposals by tertiary students to promote decent work and self-sufficiency.
During the conference which was also preceded by a Youth Forum, the two companies – Old Mutual and StartUpAfrica – managed to extend funding to tertiary students whose innovative projects made it in the ATUPA Youth Forum Olympiad finals, a competition that was won by Harare Polytechnic.
One of the teams from the college, IDK Technologies, had the most impressive proposal, beating teams from Kenya, among others.
Partnership between technical tertiary institutions and private companies is projected to fill the employment void the government has been struggling to close.
“We believe in the future of our young people in Africa, and one of the things that we know is that there are no jobs or formal employment that can take in the millions of young people being released by Universities and colleges every year.
“And, that is why our platform as StartUp Africa is all about giving young people a platform where they can showcase their ideas, be supported from the idea stage up to the implementation,” Erastus Mong’are, StartUpAfrica president told The NewsHawks.
He said his company is helping various youths in Africa whose brilliant ideas risk coming to naught due to lack of funding.
“Once the students create their business concepts, we take those concepts, they are sent through a panel of judges before selection. So, when the competition starts, every team would have spent at least US$10 000 for every project.”
Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) has been funding technical vocational education in Zimbabwe, but the load has been too heavy.
The department sponsors over 6 000 students annually while implementing developmental projects in tertiary institutions.
“Zimdef is funded through revenue collection,” said Sebastine Marume, Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) chief executive officer.
“We charge industry 1% levy. The money is taken from company. We are saying they are the beneficiaries. They are also the ones who are in need of skilled labour. That is why we call them when developing the curriculum. We try to bring in industrialists to a setup where they can engage with developers because they know the skills they want.”
The organisation has also been working on a tight budget which has made it difficult to fund its programmes, said Marume.
Students, the main beneficiaries, were getting a ZW$2 000 monthly allowance, an amount that was reviewed to ZW$10 000, which translates to US$12.50.
“In terms of the budget, 70% of revenue collected, which is estimated at US$47 million per year, 30% is used for operational costs,” Marume said.
It is against this background that ATUPA says colleges should partner the private sector in rolling out technical vocational education.
“I think the future of technical vocational education is in the hands of the youths. Therefore, it is important to prioritise them, developing their capacities so they can utilise resources at their disposal,” said Madi O Jatta, deputy permanent secretary in the Gambian ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education in an interview with The NewsHawks.
