New survey shows universities are churning out irrelevant graduates

A new survey has shown that at least half of graduates produced by East African universities lack employability skills, technical mastery and basic work-related capabilities.

According to the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), a body that regulates higher education in the region, the situation confirms concerns among employers that most graduates were not fully prepared for the job market. The situation denies all the five countries making up the region the skills needed to drive growth.

According to the survey, Uganda has the worst record, with at least 63 per cent of graduates found to lack job market skills followed closely by Tanzania where 61 per cent of graduates are ill-prepared. In Burundi and Rwanda, 55 per cent and 52 per cent of graduates respectively are perceived to be incompetent while in Kenya, 51 per cent of graduates are believed to be unfit for jobs.

This implies that despite the improvement in university enrolment across the region and the fact that thousands of students are graduating each year; their qualifications are unable to secure many of them jobs.

The report blames the falling quality of education on universities admitting more students than they can handle and lacking adequate teachers. Education experts and university administrators have however said that additional enrolment can only be handled if governments channeled more funds into higher education, so institutions can afford to expand infrastructure and hire extra tutors.

On the other hand, employers are increasingly shunning new graduates in favour of highly skilled personnel hence further complicating the problem of youth unemployment in the region.

The findings pose a challenge for the IUCEA, which has been working on harmonisation of higher education in the region. Harmonisation is aiming, among other things, to establish a fully-fledged credit transfer system that would allow students to move between universities in different countries without losing credits they have already accumulate. But this plan has been riddled with delays and controversy arising from nationalistic interests, with partner countries unwilling to relinquish sovereignty for the sake of a regional system.