Unemployed graduates, still a thorn on our side

Elizabeth Joseph

Motivational speaker, Lorraine Khaitago spoke on the pending issue of young graduates who remain jobless, the effects thereof and possible solutions.

The notion that graduates are not ready for the job market as a whole, can however not contribute to the fact that there are no opportunities for them.

Many students now see this as a thorn in their side or a stone in their path. Their morale decreases by the day, because right now they are studying with the hopes that there might be an opportunity for them when they finish.

“I think the mistake is not with the graduates, the mistake is the system, both the basic education and higher education systems are not well planned out to equip graduates for the real world. There is a lot of focus on theory and subject matters that are mostly irrelevant in the work place.

There is also very little interest placed on proper career guidance and people end up studying things that they are not cut out for and their personalities end up clashing with the career choices they made. This in its own can be a stumbling block for a graduate to land a job,” Khaitago says.

Panel discussions have been held, demonstrations have been the order of the day, because how else can the students voice their opinion and frustrations?

According to the Namibia Statistics Agency report youth employment and unemployment estimates the economic activity status of Namibian youth (persons aged 15 to 34 years) by the five year age group. There are 854,567 youth aged 15 to 34 in Namibia, of which, 320,737 were employed, and 246,262 were unemployed. This means that the labour force in these age groups totals 566,999 persons, giving a labour force participation rate (LFPR) of 66.3%.

However, it is important for us to understand that no matter what it may seem like, unemployment is not limited to just graduates, you have people that didn't manage to complete high school due to circumstances beyond their control and people that completed high school but never got the opportunity to go to university.

These were the sentiments of Khaitago and many other people agree with her. “As a nation we need to focus on capacity building and skills development programs that will enable the youth to equip themselves and be self-sufficient, and this responsibility cannot just be left to the government, the private sector as well as civil societies and entrepreneurs should embark on this journey together, it is only when we move as one that we can find a way to curb this widening gab of rich and poor and increasing unemployment rate,” she further added.

The students are now let with the ultimatum to either venture into entrepreneurship or continue to be unemployed. This can be a tough call especially if it was not your plan.

Khaitago advised the students to turn their passion into money and not to be shy or scared to charge for their intellectual property. “Make sure that you always find yourself in a room with people that have more experience and know more than you, you have to push yourself to be a student of life, things work differently in the real world so you should equip yourself with information on how you can better yourself always, every day is an opportunity to learn something new. Look for the lessons, especially in the failures, Thomas Edison didn't find one way to invent the light bulb, he found 99 ways not to,” she said.

Further she encourages the graduates to never give up searching and to be a nuisance until people are forced to hear them out.