A New Vocationalism for AfricaTowards Unemployment Reduction and Poverty Alleviation

By

KABIRU ISYAKU (Ed.D.), mni

Executive Secretary
National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE)
P.M.B. 2341,
Kaduna, Nigeria

(Fax: 234-062-241460; Phone: 234-062-237963)

PIUS ONUWA NWAOKOLO (Ph.D.), FSTB, Fnabe, Mnva

Provost
Federal College of Education (Technical)
P.M.B. 1044,
Asaba
Delta State, Nigeria

(Fax/Phone: 234-056-280331)

Summary of presentation at the 3rd International Conference "Researching Vocational Education and Training" July 14 - July 16 1999, Bolton Institute

ABSTRACT

Faced with high unemployment, migration of youths to urban centres and the need to enhance technological development and economic growth in Africa in the 1960s, many African nations like Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and a host of others agreed at continental meetings to vocationalise their secondary schools. Indeed, it was the spirit of the Addis Ababa Conference Report of 1961 which dominated formal education policy in African countries during the 1960s.

As agreed, many African nations vocationalised their schools. For example, in 1982, a new National Policy on Education which placed great emphasis on technical and vocational education, came into being in Nigeria. On assessment, however, it has been found that the vocationalised programmes have failed to solve the mounting youth unemployment and have not reduced the poverty levels of these youths because of implementation problems and lack of entrepreneurial skills.

This work suggests a new vocationalism - an initiative that combines entrepreneurship and vocational education. This combination, as will be elaborated on later, will have the capacity to produce job-creators and not only job-seekers. It will also have the advantage of minimising the implementational pitfalls of the existing technical and vocational education arrangements in Africa.

KEY WORDS/TERMS

Vocationalism

Entrepreneurship

Self-Employment

Technology Education

Technical/Vocational Education

INTRODUCTION

In the not too distant past, anybody who had gone to school, college, polytechnic or university was almost sure to secure one form of paid employment or the other in Africa. Unemployment as a problem did not manifest until the 1980s. In Nigeria, for example, it was not a serious question until the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970. Even then it was at a tolerable level till 1981 when the present economic depression struck (Aladekomo, 1999).

Most African economies are today characterised by high unemployment figures and high poverty levels especially among youths. For example, in Algeria, nearly 50 per cent of the estimated unemployed is in the 16-24 age group. Corresponding figures are 50 per cent for Tunisia and 62 per cent for Nigeria (World Bank Report, 1993). Therefore, as observed by Livingstone (1989), "unemployment rates by age range of maximum unemployment virtually everywhere in Africa is from 15 to 24, after which rates fall drastically. Poverty also remains a very serious problem. Statistics show the percentage of people living below absolute poverty levels as high. The following examples in rural and urban classifications are depictive of the situation - Botswana (rural 55; urban 40); Ethiopia (rural 60; urban 65); Kenya (rural 55; urban 10); Somalia (rural 70; urban 40); All Africa (rural 20; urban 14) and Sub-Saharan Africa (rural 30; urban 11) and Sub-Saharan Africa excluding Nigeria (rural 38; urban 16) (World Bank Report, 1992).

The response of African governments to youth unemployment and enhancement of economic growth since their attaining independence status has mostly been the vocationalisation of school programmes thus building on the principle that if youths are provided with skills, they would find jobs and there will be economic prosperity (Lillis and Hogan, 1983; ). These ideas were formally endorsed in several ministerial and other conferences of African leaders especially at Addis Ababa (1961), Tananarive (1962), Abidjan (1961), Lagos (1964), Nairobi (1968), Lagos (1962) and Harare (1982) (Ohuche, 1989). Since then countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Botswana, Swaziland, etc. have actually vocationalised their schools.

Anyaduba and Osu (1990) have argued that despite the reforms in Nigeria, secondary education could be said to be certificate oriented with little or no attempt at the preparation of students for the world of work. According to them, this has resulted in "massive unemployment of the numerous secondary school leavers who neither gain admission into higher institutions nor become absorbed into the teacher training colleges". Gang (1989) also noted that the programme in Nigeria had not been well implemented pointing out that the obstacles included ineffective delivery system in the classroom. The World Bank Education Sector Policy Paper of 1980 attacked vocationalised programmes in Africa on grounds of cost and discouraging employment outcomes. In a different presentation (Nwaokolo, 1997), we discussed exhaustively the way forward recommending the establishment of Vocational Area Centres to cut down cost and ensure that the few centres were well-equipped and relevantly staffed.

However, going by the reports from Nigeria and other African countries with relatively successful implementation, it has become very clear that vocationalisation had not solved the mounting unemployment problems (Urevbu, 1988; Foster, 1975). Psacharopoulos (1990) indeed observed that "in spite of such manpower orientation, unemployment is still very high in Africa today" pointing to the situations in Zambia, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Some analysts, notably, Foster (1977), Psacharopoulos and Loxley (1985), Heyneman (1985) have continued to criticise this strategy of fighting unemployment. In the particular case of the Kenyan experiment, Foster (1987) doubted the ability of the reforms to check unemployment or increase economic growth unless they were "cojoined with those strategies that increase the efficiency of labour markets while providing economic incentives to enter industry or commerce".

It is against this background of failures for varying reasons that this paper reappraises the situation and makes a case for entrepreneurship education to be cojoined with technology education in our syllabuses - a concept hereby referred to as a "New Vocationalism". Of course, entrepreneurship education is desirable for all manners of educational disciplines but the thrust here is entrepreneurship in the technology education domain or what Afonja (1999) calls "technical entrepreneurship" with the broad objective of unemployment reduction and poverty alleviation. We are aware that in some African countries, efforts are already targetted at self-employment programmes for out of school unemployed youths as with National Directorate of Employment (NDE), People's Bank and Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP), all in Nigeria, but attention needs to be paid to integrating formal education and training policy with employment and self-employment development. As Aladekomo (1999) agrees, the superiority of this approach is that it is preventive rather than curative. These authors will now explore the concept of entrepreneurship before addressing its combination with technology education.

WHAT IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

In the words of Afonja (1999), entrepreneurship means, "making a living by working for yourself". Entrepreneurship, therefore, involves the ability to set up a business as different from being employed. This ability should be 'acquired'. To us, while technology education is geared towards acquisition of technical skills, entrepreneurship education deals with the skills of business ownership and management.

We must now consider the relationship of entrepreneurship education with technology education. The term "technology education" means the same thing as "vocational and technical education" and refers to, for the purpose of this thesis, all components of technical education, business education, agricultural science education, home economics education, creative arts education and computer science education. Literature (Etukudo, 1999) shows that some form of reorienting technical and vocational education more towards self-employment is already being tried in a few East and South African countries but not popularised all over the continent and it is doubtful whether "seed" capital arrangements which are a major component of this thesis are the same as here propagated.

CO-JOINING TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION WITH ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION

In every programme of technology education especially at the post-primary and post-secondary levels, a three-credit unit (or as dictated by local circumstances) subject which may be titled "Entrepreneurship" or "Small-Business Management" should be introduced and made compulsory for all technology education students. This subject which may run for one semester during the second year of a 3-year Certificate in Education (Technical) programme, or the final year of an OND programme or the final year of a technology degree programme should include such topics like, sources of financing small-scale businesses, small business accounting, prospecting for business, feasibility surveys and breakeven analysis, human and public relations, personnel administration and modalities for registering business names. This list is not exhaustive and could be extended as necessary. Brainstorming approaches could be used in class sessions to identify possible business areas open to a fresh graduate who wants to float a business.

The training for entrepreneurship must be in addition to the usual skills training in any of the technology areas since a typist, for example, without adequate typing skills is not likely to succeed even when encouraged to open a business centre. It is, therefore, important that the introduction of Entrepreneurship Education does not disadvantage the manipulative skills loading of the technology education syllabus. Perhaps it is important to stress that in a period of mass unemployment and declining economic fortunes, only the best can survive.

The foregoing has pointed out and dealt with curriculum implications of Entrepreneurship for Technology Education. It has also raised the issue of capital necessary to commence a vocationally-oriented business enterprise on graduation. This will now be explored.

CAPITAL FORMATION FOR SELF-EMPLOYMENT

The education and training coupled with business management skills will not be utilised if the fresh graduate cannot find a paid job and cannot also raise the necessary capital with which to start a business. We, therefore, agree with Simon Mcgrath's (Aladekomo, 1999) position in his paper 'From Policy to Practice: Education, Training and Self-Employment in Kenya' that "... in preparing TVE graduates for sustainable self-employment, enterprise education should be collaborated with post training support factors, e.g. capital, equipment, contracts, etc". African governments should, therefore, set aside some money each year for financing technology graduates who intend to float their own businesses. The fund is necessary for to procuring capital items of equipment like typewriters, welding machines, hand tools for engine repairs, sewing machines, etc. The fund shall be made repayable but must be interest free. There should be a serious government agency charged with the responsibility for monitoring the loan and the feasibility of businesses to be set up with the facility. People have been known to divert funds to other purposes in the past so the government must establish guidelines to forestal misappropriation. The scheme under consideration here is not quite different from the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) programme in Nigeria except that it should be more efficiently administered and directed at vocational graduates of formal education.

It may be argued that the government may not be able to finance all technology graduates in this manner. These authors share the same view but it is necessary to remember that the scheme is meant primarily for those class of graduates who may not be able or want to obtain paid employment, those who may not proceed immediately to higher levels of education and those who will by their academic performance demonstrate ability and interest in the scheme. Besides, some students may opt out of the programme simply because they are required to provide the seed capital. This means that the scheme may not be too heavy at any one time for the government since technology students are also better placed than liberal arts students to secure paid employments (Nwaokolo, 1993). Other insights may well develop for financing small technology businesses as the idea gathers momentum.

In addition to government assistance, the 3-credit unit course on "Entrepreneurship" should make it compulsory for Business students, for example, to buy their own typewriters, for productivity sessions. These personal machines will enhance the students technology skills as they are able to practice any time they desire and actually make money through private practice while still in the programme. At the completion of the course, every registered student would already have acquired a typewriter as a fixed asset with which to start a business centre. This manner of capital acquisition is already in operation in Home Economics in some institutions in Nigeria where students are expected to buy and retain their own sewing machines. In Nigeria, for example, a medical textbook can sometimes cost as much as N100,000.00 and parents buy it. A typewriter or a sewing machine may not cost this much. Therefore, made a policy, parents will be encouraged to provide such seed capitals for their wards. In the informal sector, parents provide their wards with initial capital after apprenticeship training so this idea should not provoke indignation.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY ACTIVATION

For purposes of public policy activation, it is hereby recommended that graduating vocational students be exposed to entrepreneurship education during which course they should be encouraged to provide simple but 'the main' vocational equipment needed to start 'productive' businesses. We have also argued in earlier publications (Nwaokolo, 1997) and hereby also recommend that in order to strengthen vocational programmes in our academic institutions, Area Vocational Centres should be established while the individual institutions are left with providing only simple tools and relatively inexpensive machines. We hereby recommend that African governments strengthen their requests to international bodies like UNESCO, UNDP, foreign governments, etc. to assist with scholarship programmes for vocational teachers who must be absorbed on graduation and paid 'vocational allowances' as poor remuneration will deny the government their services in favour of industries (Sofolahan, 1989).

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The poor economic climate in the continent which has worsened the unemployment position has necessitated the need to consider seriously the introduction of entrepreneurship education in our educational system. As a result, this paper recommends a three-credit course on "Entrepreneurship" in the school system with students providing their working tools. This is meant to equip all technology students with the ability to float and run a technology-oriented business on graduation. It is also recommended that the African governments provide fresh vocational graduates with initial capital with which to set up businesses. Other non-formal funding schemes could also be explored such as parents/guardians sponsorship.

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