Dilemma of an unemployed graduate

07 Dec, 2014 - 00:12 0 Views
Dilemma of an unemployed graduate In a dilemma . . . While the thousands of graduates stare at unemployment, experts have retorted that the education is failing to to produce enterprenuers who instead of seeking jobs start their own businesses

The Sunday Mail

Debra Matabvu

In a dilemma . . . While the thousands of graduates stare at unemployment, experts have retorted that the education is failing to to produce enterprenuers who instead of seeking jobs start their own businesses

In a dilemma . . . While the thousands of graduates stare at unemployment, experts have retorted that the education is failing to to produce entrepreneurs who instead of seeking jobs start their own businesses

On her daughter’s graduation day, Mrs Rhoda Chasi beamed with pride and joy as she marvelled at the sight of her daughter -together with fellow classmates- lifting their caps after being conferred with their degrees.

Armed with a university degree, her daughter was to conquer the world and her life was now full of endless possibilities, Mrs Chasi imagined.

The sleepless nights, pain and headache she had had to endure to ensure that her daughter got the best start to life now seemed minute and paled in comparison to the endless possibilities that lay in store for her daughter.

The sacrifices she made for the past 18 years or so were finally going to pay dividend and surely her life was going to change for the better.Or least, so she thought!

Like her mother, Christine Chasi also had big dreams.

She envisaged herself putting her newly acquired accounting knowledge and skills to practical use at a formal workplace somewhere.

Climbing the corporate ladder, giving back to her family and hopefully someday starting her own family was her grand plan.

After years of all those night study sessions, enduring the anxiety that comes with assignments and exams and balancing her academic work with sort of social life, she was finally going to live the life of her dreams.

However, they were both wrong.

No sooner had she received her degree did the reality of hers and many other graduates begin to dawn on her.

It’s been roughly three years since she graduated from the University of Zimbabwe, but Christine remains unemployed and is fast losing hope of securing a proper job.After initially job hunting in her field of study without breakthrough, she finally settled for opening a back yard hair salon where she attends to less than five customers a month.

Payments are few and far in-between with clients sometime crying for free service while others abscond payment all together.

“After sacrificing so much and knowing your daughter has all the educational qualifications for a good job, it pains to watch her wake up every morning with nothing to do” she says.

Even though Rhoda remains optimistic, Christine is slowly beginning to believe her dreams have all but been shattered and has lost all hope of ever finding a job in her chosen profession.

“I have been applying for jobs since the day I wrote my final exams, that was in 2011. I have applied to more than 20 companies and have been called to more than 15 interviews but nothing has materialised and it really frustrates me”, she narrates.

“And this is not good at all because you will end up thinking that maybe I have bad omen or was bewitched…” she says.

“However, I get comfort in that some of my classmates are in the same predicament. There is comfort in numbers you know,” she says as she tries to smile.

Now Christine’s day can best be summed up in the following.

Wake up, do house chores, wait for customers and repeat.

Wake up, do house chores, wait for customers and repeat.

Christine is just one of the millions of Zimbabwean graduates who are unemployed and roaming the streets in search of employment.What makes the situation more tragic is the fact Christine is one of the lucky ones as many in her predicament lack the basic skills endeavour in manual work and more often that naught resort to crime, prostitutions in some cases or simply give up and stay at home.

Most university and college graduates have now joined the burgeoning informal sector where their degrees are not relevant at all.

Estimates say above 80% of able bodied Zimbabweans are formally unemployed with a large chunk of them being university and college graduates. In his budget speech last month, Minister Finance and Economic Planning, Cde Patrick Chinamasa highlighted that, over the past four years alone, more than 4,000 companies had been forced to close shop by the inclement operating conditions, leaving over 55 414 unemployed.

Zimbabwe now has about 10 State universities and several other government-run technical colleges which churn out about 70 000 graduates every year.

Such statistics confirm the country is creating a high number of educated but unemployed citizens. National University of Science and Technology (NUST), director for Technopark, Dr Eli Mtetwa said there was need for curriculum review to happen at primary and secondary education and not at University level.

“I think curriculum review ought to happen at primary and secondary school level in order for the manual skills to part of basic education,” Dr Mtetwa said.

“The problem of unemployment after graduation is not caused by the tertiary education curriculum, it is the economy that needs refurbishment.

“It is rather difficult to review the tertiary institutions curriculum because you wouldn’t know what to review”.

The technopark unit conducts outreach activities as a way of building bridges and partnerships with industrial and commercial organisations in the country.One of its major objectives is to be a catalyst for the economic and social advancement of Zimbabwean society by stimulating economic growth and modernisation. Ms Chasi echoed Dr Mtetwa‘s sentiments and said it was important for government to create formal jobs for those that might not want to be entrepreneurs.

“The current youth empowerment programmes are just not enough to do the trick. Some youths may not be entrepreneurial enough to succeed in business – all they need is a job, to practice what they have learnt at college – as accountants, economists, nurses, engineers and the like,” she said.

“They cannot all be entrepreneurs, at the end of the day, some are just meant to be professionals,

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