Experts
now believe that with nearly 75 million unemployed young people the next global
financial crisis is in the making. To avert economic catastrophe, the world needs
to create 600 million jobs over the next decade.
In
Kenya, nearly 75 percent of the unemployed are aged between 15 and 24 years. 60 to
90 percent of young workers in developing countries are employed within
the informal sector. The disillusionment and alienation of being excluded from
productive employment or realizing one’s potential can have enduring social and
psychological consequences for the youth.
Why
has unemployment among young people reached a crisis proportion? In my view
five factors are implicated.
The
first factor is rapid population growth. At the current population of 1.03
billion, Africa’s population doubled in just 27 years. Here at home Kenya’s
population has nearly quadrupled in just 50 years. 63 percent of the population
of the East African Community region is under 24 years old. This high
proportion of young people is a veritable cauldron for furious population
growth far into the foreseeable feature. African countries are adding more
young people than can be supported by national planning capacity or the pace and
character of economic growth.
The
second factor is low quality education. Even as more young people are
graduating from high school and college, they lack the skills demanded by the
21st century workplace. Our education system is antiquated,
predominantly influenced by left-brain education paradigms of the industrial
revolution, which privilege sequential, logical and analytical worldviews. The right-brain
nonlinear, intuitive and holistic view of the universe is scorned upon as nebulous
and insubstantial.
I am of the Samuel Taylor Coleridge tribe
and believe that a great mind must be androgynous or “non-hemispheric”. In his
book, “A whole new mind: Moving from the
information age to the conceptual age”, Daniel H. Pink argues that we are
moving from an economy and society built on the logical, linear, computer-like
capabilities of the information age to an economy and society built on big
picture needs requiring meaning makers and pattern recognizers.
Our school system; from kindergarten to
university accomplish far less for our children than it should. A majority of
children leave primary school without attaining the basic competencies in
literacy and numeracy. Many students graduate from college today without being
able to write or reason well enough to satisfy potential employers. Our
education is predicated on onerous and useless content, driven by unthinking
memorization and regurgitation. This kind of education does not produce the
agile adaptive thinkers demanded by the conceptual age we live in.
Nobody understands the weaknesses of Kenya’s
public education better than the uber wealthy civil servants and political
class. They send their children to expensive prep schools here at home and then
to top colleges abroad. They understand that Kenya’s antiquated education does
not prepare the students for their first jobs or to become
successful entrepreneurs.
The
third factor is the structural flaws in Africa’s economic growth. While Africa’s
economic growth in the last decade is unprecedented, it tends to trickle upward
rather than downward. Services are the fastest growing sector across most
African countries. This includes telecommunications, warehousing, transport,
banking, security and insurance.
Growth
in these areas have the lowest multiplier effect, hence has the least potential
to create jobs for the majority unskilled graduates from high school and
college. Robust growth in agriculture and industry are likely to have the
largest potential to generate high quality economic growth, with the largest multiplier
effects and huge employment opportunities. But both of these sectors are in
decline, stifled neglect and globalization.
The
fourth factor is the discouraged youth. In many African countries, the job
market, both private and public is under the tyranny of ethnic cartels. Many
young people are irredeemably cynical about recruitment processes. A growing
number of young people have stopped looking for work. They have anecdotal
experiences that are hard to discount.
The
fifth factor is lack of coherent national policy. Kenya offers good examples. We
have implemented incoherent programs like Kazi Kwa Vijana in a futile attempt to
address youth issues. In an uncertain
world, the youth need skills in critical thinking and complex reasoning. This
must be buttressed by inclusive economic growth policies. Ad hoc programs like the
recently launched UWEZO will fail because it does not address fundamental
structural drivers of youth unemployment.
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