Skills insecurity in Zambia: what is going on, why?

By Clive Mutame Siachiyako

Global estimates are that 75 million of the world’s young people are unemployed. About 150 million of that number is underemployed. This does not only represent a huge loss of productive capacity (as people in the prime of life are turned into dependents); but it is also a potential source of social disruption and a daily source of individual angst. Similarly, industry complains that it cannot get hold of the right people. More than a third of employers worldwide had trouble filling jobs (Economist.com). Skills shortages are pressing the Zambian industry as well.

 Being a landlocked country, Zambia sits on many opportunities and risks. Among the risks is the skills insecurity. Bordered by 8 countries, Zambia is a fertile ground for skilled persons to come and apply themselves with their skills; make money and send the money back home [capital flight]. Capital flight is depriving the country capital for reinvestment and increased income levels. A number of factors contribute to Zambia’s skills insecurity. Among them is inadequate investment in technical and vocational and education and training (TVET). Much of the attention has been on basic education, general education and university education. According to the economist.com findings, many governments are pouring money into universities, and universities are competing in singing their own praises. As a result, parents and their offspring have shunned vocational schools. Many students chose to go to academic schools, yet vocational schools give them more chance of finding work.

Meanwhile, many of the economic activities in Zambia [and globally] are driven by artisans, technicians and technologists. They are hands-on persons. Their training focus less on theoretical abstracts. Countries that have aptly invested in TVET has remained strong and viable in value addition, productivity and efficiency. For example, Germany investment in TVET has seen the country making huge strides in grassroots economic progress among citizens. South Korea borrowed the Germany model and under the Meister School Model.

Poor perception of TVET coupled with lack of career pride has pushed Zambians off TVET. They go for white collar training where they will work in offices and wear suits. They do not want to get dirty to generate income. They want others to do it. And that “others” are foreigners. The foreigners come and grab even jobs that could be done by Zambians. They mint gold and the gold is sent back to improve their home country economies. For example, Zimbabwean skilled persons in construction do much of the quality work in construction and the proceeds of the work go to run the Zimbabwean economy. Zambians have remained yearning for white collar jobs that are in short supply or nonexistent at all.

Obsoleteness of equipment and lapses in curriculum have played a role in TVET falling standards. Technology has improved by many strides, yet the investment in TVET equipment has remained sluggish. The sluggishness has affected the quality of TVET and its value to the economic progress in the country. Industry-training weak collaborations affect curriculum relevance to the industry. Much of the curriculum is overtaken by industry requirements. The result is skills mismatch and gaps when learners get into the industry. The industry lose time in retraining the graduates for them to be useful to the labour market. Skills mismatch has resulted into close 200 million persons globally to be jobless (https://www.un.org/). Zambian industry has equally complained of graduates not meeting expectations. Some argue that “it takes 2 years for us to retrain them for them to be of value to our operations”. This entails that what the training sector is doing in not in tandem with labour market needs. The two sectors are operating in different universes each doing what they think works. This poor industry-training collaboration has had a toil on improving TVET.

Curriculum lapses and obsolete equipment make persons churned out of the TVET sector to be irrelevant to the industry. The industry cannot find right skilled persons it needs. Yet training institutions are churning out graduates in big numbers annually. Some industries have been pushed into forming their own training wings to ensure apt training in imparted on the learners. Their loss of confidence in the training sector is also weakening the need for quality collaborative actions in improving the TVET sector. The Zambian industry equally has its lapses. It is generally weak compared to 8 neighbours and peripheral countries like South Africa. The collaboration between training and industry get a raw deal with the infancy of the industry. As a result, the training sector does not get the required input in curriculum development and reviews for the betterment of the TVET sector and Zambia’s skills base. In some instances, industry representative are not appropriate. For example, for a curriculum in Heavy Equipment Repair (HER), a human resources person represents the industry. Although the person may be from industry, their technical knowhow limitation negates to the core of industry-training collaboration. The weakness of the Zambian industry makes Zambia skills risky horizon for foreigners to jobs and work that should be done by local people.

Risks arising from skills lapses: 

Import of labour: One of the risks is import of labour. Many foreign investors bring skilled persons from their countries to meet the skills gap on the Zambian market. The problem at times is not about lack of skilled persons, but ill-skilled persons either because they were trained on old equipment or used inadequate curriculum. The world has progressed and without Zambia investing in modernising curriculum and training equipment, foreign investors will import labour to get a Return on Investment. Investors are not holidayers. They get into a country to make money. They need skilled persons to get things moving to get a return on investment. Thus, even if Zambia want to create jobs for citizens from foreign direct investment (FDI), without supplying appropriately skilled persons, investors will pay little or no attention to job creation goals without skilled persons to drive the investment mission. Foreigners will come and get jobs even in folk lifting if Zambians do not have appropriately skilled persons.

Capital flight: When investors come with skilled persons outside Zambia, capital is flown back to home countries by those skilled persons actualizing the investment. For example, when government says “20% of each contract goes to Zambians,” but without aptly skilled Zambians to match the investor’s investment actualizing speed that will not happen. Zambians will be relegated to trading and shouting “boma ilanganepo” [government should look into this and that]. A National Council for Construction (NCC) and Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis & Research (ZIPAR) research in 2017 showed that firms involved in specialised activities faced difficulties in finding workers with skills profiles that matched job requirements. The mismatch between skills and job requirements was perceived to increase the employment of foreigners even in low-skill jobs in Zambia. The Survey stated that “the construction sector is plagued with a great need for training either due to significant skills and job requirement gaps or service delivery standards in the market were rising”. The Survey further highlighted the need for employee training in formal and on-the-job technical skills the construction industry because the gap between skills acquired in learning institutions and the nature of jobs available in the labour market was growing.

It also showed that “the training environment limits graduates to walk in and make a contribution without retraining. When industry assesses competences, it is looking at a graduate being able to demonstrate to us that she/he understands and are able to operate certain equipment to a large scale.” In short, Zambia is faced with a crisis in skills, disadvantaging local people in getting jobs in sectors like construction; “resulting into 80-90% invested money in the sector (by government) being taken by foreign contractors.  There's need to retain the money government is investing in state-of-the-art infrastructure (schools, roads and stadia) development for sustainable economic growth.”The mismatch between skills and job requirements was perceived to increase the employment of foreigners even in low-skill jobs in Zambia. The companies with contracts in the sector thus sold their contracts to foreigners for commission. They settle for peanuts yet the construction sector is the money spinner that Zambian contractors can benefit in remaining viable in business for a long time. Contract vending has make Zambian contractors weak and opens spaces for foreigners to do construction works and money sent to their homeland.

Crowding labour market by foreigners: Investors do not come to Zambia for sightseeing. They come make money on their investment. If they do not find the right persons to work with for them to realise a return on their capital [which they could have borrowed somewhere], they will look outside Zambia to find the right persons to drive their investment. Foreigners whom in their countries jobs are in limited availability will take up opportunities and crowd the labour market. Foreigners from different countries will be populate the Zambian labour force whilst Zambians stand on the fence watching in unemployment and poverty. It makes the Zambians vulnerable and they settle for casual work in areas of the economy where investors inject their money. The situation weakens Zambia’s economic situation due to non-participation of Zambians in different economic sectors.

Loss of businesses: Businesses thrive, inter alia, due to having apt persons to drive their goal. Without skilled persons, it becomes difficult to satisfy customer needs. Shortage of skilled persons [besides general labour], limits businesses growth and sustenance. But with skills risks, Zambian businesses loss business opportunities for a) failure to meet customer expectations b) poor material utilisation c) efficiency, d) lack of skilled persons and other factors. The business environment currently requires skilled persons who can competitively meet needs of customers, efficiently utilise resources [time, raw materials and human capital], innovatively add value to products/services, and other requisites that make a business more competitive. Generally, TVET cannot only support the socio-economic welfare of individuals, but it can also increase international competitiveness. Countries with adequate and quality skilled persons are more competitive in attracting investment as they have suitable human capital for investors to realise a return on their investment. The absence of skilled persons negates business opportunities that a country may be endowed with.

Dependency on government: Government cannot provide everything to citizens. Economic diversification requires many citizens to apply their skills in different economic activities. TVET embed entrepreneurship education and training (EET) in it. It seeks to trigger the entrepreneurial genie in learners for them to undertake entrepreneurial activities. Without skilled and entrepreneurial citizens, dependency on government increases. People will look to government on almost everything. Citizens take a back seat and waiting for manna to fall from government. That has never happened anywhere. Citizens must apply themselves in the economy.

Possible solutions

Investment in TVET is key. The investment should involve workshops, equipment, tools, human capital [lecturers in these institutions], infrastructure and other systems that make TVET efficiency. Investment in TVET is costly. It is different from theoretical based training like in teaching commercial subjects. Modern equipment costs good money. Sustainable funding of TVET is paramount. With apt investment of the Skills Development Fund government introduced, that can be smoothly achieved. Most of the TVET institutions can be become incubators of businesses and supply industry relevant skilled persons.

Career pride and perception of TVET graduates is cardinal. When industry appreciates and have positive perception of the skilled persons in TVET, the confidence of the graduates from the TVET sector will be raised. They will proudly and confidently present themselves to the industry. The industry mostly despise craftsmen and artisans. It erodes their confidence and worse pay them lowly. It deprives them of the income they need to remain viable. When they are appreciated and remunerated adequately, TVET graduates will have more value to the industry. No one wants to be looked down on, it eats into the morale fabric.

Quality industry-training collaboration inputs into the relevance and responsiveness of the curriculum used in TVET. When collaboration between industry and the training sector is loose, the quality of skilled persons gets affected. The curriculum will not meet industry requirements. The training sector will keep on doing what it feels is appropriate. The industry will be complaining about not having right skilled persons to help them meet their deliverables. Skills gaps and mismatches will emerge and will be difficult to meet without industry and the training sector working collaboratively in curriculum development. Curriculum is a valuable tool in training. It defines what should be taught, what should be assessed and how it will be assessed. It is pertinent that it is responsive and relevant to the modern labour market requirements.

Benchmarking with likeminded countries advanced in some skills areas. There are countries with workable TVET models. Germany and South Korean are some examples. They have admirable TVET systems under the Meister Programme. Strong industry collaboration with training institutions have paid for well for those countries. Samsung partners with KRIVET in investing and finding strategies to improve TVET. Countries with viable models can be studied and contextualized to the Zambian situation. Reinventing the will may be belabouring on the obvious. We can learn from each other and see what works for us and what does not for the betterment of enhanced skilled persons in the country.

Conclusion

Currently the picture is bad. Chinese investors bring Chinese skilled persons. Zimbabweans are carrying out most of the construction works in Zambia.  Tanzanians are tiling houses and other buildings. And residents of other neighbouring countries taking their part. They have the skills and right attitude to get things moving. Zambians mostly lack apt skills and mindset towards work. The pursuance of white collar jobs is ruining Zambians. It is making most citizens crybabies. Skills rule the world. There is no country that developed without skilled persons. Ground Zero for example was built by artisans and technologists. They were the ones who laid each brick, each metal and other wares to get things in place. Zambians cannot afford to folding their arms waiting for “boma to do something”, it is too risky to behave in such a manner because the “train does not wait for a smoker”. The country will remain behind and loss out on its economic targets.

Preparing and training youths for the 21st century industry requires combined inputs of government, the industry and private sector. Government needs to put in place appropriate policy frameworks and implementation systems for relevant vocational training. Policy frameworks; (i) define funding strategies for vocational training and implementation strategies are made, (ii) training pathways designed and modes of implementing them devised (to increase access to vocational training), and (iii) industry interaction (for hands-on experience to learners) spelled out and modes of carrying them out well defined, as well as other initiatives to ensure that vocational graduates are properly nurtured for the modern labour market.

In addition, the industry needs to create a haven for nurturing vocational training in different sectors of the economy. The industry detects skills needs as soon as they arise, thus can signal them to the trainers and help learners acquire such competences through industrial attachments and other industry interaction modes strategically made to bridge skills lapses in most young graduates.

The industry can also devise funding strategies towards sectoral skills.  Each sector needs certain skills to increase its productivity. Each industry needs a certain quantum of human capital to achieve projected growth targets. Training right numbers of skilled, energetic and relevant personnel for each industry is a costly undertaking. Shared input in training such a pool of human capital is indispensable. Training the right clusters of skilled youths with the right calibre requires government, sectoral and industry input for attainment of collective goals (of having empowered youths –government goals; and having relevant, innovative and dedicated personnel on the job for increased productivity –goal of the industry.)

The role of the parent becomes very paramount in developing such a calibre of vocational graduates. Parents influence career choices of their children and who they end being in their lives. Homes are largest investment and greatest havens of creating great minds and stunted-dependent minds. Therefore, a new approach to career guidance is unavoidable in this era, especially with the failed old education system mainly focused on theory, which has been the major characteristic feature of mostly universities.

It is very risky today to simply say to a child, “study hard and look for a job.” A child today needs a more sophisticated education, and the current system is not delivering the goods. Vocational training has proved to be one of the tools in developing a new crop of youths who innovate, work hard, who use their intellect and hands to create value, who are financially competent, self-reliant and look-out for “how they can create employment (or how to come out of the ‘employed status’ when they still have the strength to create wealth for themselves), and not who can employ them until they retire.’

Parents can help the world have a class of youths whose mind is not fine-tuned towards "entitlement” mentality (i.e. pension, health policy, etc.). Things parents put in the ‘brain chips’ of their children has a huge impact on who they become in their lives. Career ‘worlds’ parents create in the minds of the children often determine the career they pursue. Unfortunately, the two (parents and today’s children) are living in very different times. In the 60s getting good grades at school, going to university and looking for a secure job in government, and waiting for entitlements made sense; but it is not workable anymore. Youths should be allowed to explore their inner-self to pursue careers that enable them fit in the world of today, not the non-existing world of the old age.

Gone are the days too when industry waited for government to training human resource for them. Industry currently require sophisticated and focused graduates who are ready to get ‘dirty’ (use their practical skills and intellect) to contribute towards personal and national development. Combined input of the industry, government and parents in sharping today’s pool of human capital can achieve a lot in addressing some of the youth unemployment challenges.