Going through social media, you see thousands of unemployed graduates seeking help to secure jobs. Some of the tweets courtesy of @SpireJim
“I am humbly requesting your assistance on possible job connections. I am a 24-year-old business administration graduate (who majored in marketing) and have found it quite challenging for the last 2 years to get a reliable job. I’ve come to think I took the wrong course. Any assistance? ”
“I am a young lady with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, a post-graduate diploma in information security and a certified in cyber security. I am passionate and knowledgeable about IT security, no experience yet. I am looking for an entry-level security job. Thank you”
“I hold a post-graduate degree in software engineering without a job, our profession isn’t applicable in Uganda”
” I really need your help, i studied civil engineering and finished in 2020 but it has been a tag of war getting a job to survive on”
i hold a first-class degree in adult and community education with skills and vast experience in VSLA training. Kindly connect me to PDM, MSC, or UMRA. ”
Reading through all these tell you that there is something wrong with both our education system and our economy. Many people have raised the issue of the mismatch between skills in the labour market and skills offered by graduates. Have we attempted to identify the source and address the underlying issues? My thinking is as good as yours, and the definitive answer is absolutely not.
I would like to quote M. J. DeMarco in his book unscripted he writes
“Every something tormenting your daily humdrum hints of a great deception. Clues to a ruse. An imminent awareness that only needs its confession:
You’re living, but you aren’t alive.
Your heart beats, but there is no pulse.
Your mind is poisoned, but the toxicology is clean.
Your soul has been stolen, but there are no thieves.
Suspicion has swelled while the incongruity gnaws.
Yes, this wasn’t the life you signed up for.
This wasn’t your plan.
Something is wrong. ”
This is what we are experiencing today. Most graduates are living a life they never imagined or planned, and it’s not just the graduates but cuts across most people.
What we are hearing is that my education has had the indirect and unintended consequence of restricting my options to specific disciplines based on an educative skill set. Therefore, this results in conformity and limited choice. At the same time, because of this, if there aren’t opportunities in my field, my education has become marginalized and devalued. If the opportunities are available, they require less education (say, a diploma ) than I have (MBA) hence rendering me overqualified and unemployable. On the other hand, they are asking for the experience of many years and I am a fresh graduate. If my skills become less useful as technology changes, my education becomes worthless, and my value to society drops as a result.
Our education system
Our education system is based on the industrial revolution time when conveyer belt thinking was established. Just imagine we sit in rows in our classes, we have bells to tell us our next activity and have a million rules for us to follow all through. During the industrial revolution, education was meant to churn out factory workers and not job creators. The above tweets clearly show that our education system has never changed to meet the current global technologically and knowledge-based economy.
You will agree with me that whoever made this statement was 100 percent right. The problem is not people being educated. The problem is that they are educated just enough to believe what they’ve been taught, but not educated enough to question what they’ve been taught.
Scripted life
M. J. DeMarco calls this a scripted life that is manufactured by conventional wisdom, distributed by institutionalized indoctrination, and swallowed with blind faith, resulting in you as the product. The scripted life, simply defined is that in your early years of life, they assured you that to succeed in life you must go to school and attain all levels of education and get a good job. Education is very important and everyone is supposed to get it but what quality of education are we getting?
I have friends of mine that have master’s degrees but hold positions of diploma holders. What kind of value are they contributing to this economy when they are underemployed? Why can’t they use their knowledge to solve social and economic problems? Are they not working to survive?
The scripted doctrine that we are fed is:
- To succeed in life, you need a degree.
- Comfort and security start with a good job at a good company.
- Starting a business is risky.
- Wealth is measured by your bank account and the material possessions it buys: the house where you live, the car you drive, and the clothes you wear.
- Follow your passion, do what you love, and you will never work another day in your life.
- Time is money. etc.
This doctrine has played a key role in many of the problems we face in our society today. We have refused to apply for certain jobs because we regard them as not our level of class or refused to start a business because we fear the unknown.
Lack of political will
Another major cause of the high unemployment rate among graduates in our society is the lack of political will to transform our education system to be commensurate with global trends. Our political class has focused on fighting technological advancement and consumption on the premise of “creating sanity online”. As countries are creating silicon valley-like hubs, Uganda’s political elite are enacting laws that inhibit its internet use.
This is a clear mismatch between a country’s technological advancement and political willingness to drive this agenda. As I stated earlier, our education system is based on the industrial revolution. We have heard the president and minister for trade advocate industries as the solution to unemployment but have forgotten to answer the question of what quality of jobs are they.
Because of the unwillingness of the political class to facilitate the education system transformation, our graduates are left to uphold the Scripted life. Which is well articulated by M. J. DeMarco as
“Educational institutions and their SCRIPTED tentacles are now manufacturing entire generations of brain-dead adults who never failed in their entire life and have a wall of participation trophies to show for it. Their greatest accomplishments are caricatures in the virtual versus the real world. They’re brainwashed to believe that life is fair and it will protect your feelings. Hard work, optional. Competing is optional. Going above the call is optional. Many fear phone and face-to-face communication, opting for more impersonal methods, such as texting, Snapchatting, and Instagramming. Others hyperventilate and get “triggered” at the slightest criticism or divergent opinions that intrude on their preselected and prescreened world.”
Most graduates believe that education ends with graduation instead of it being the igniter for more education. The best of all, self-taught education was a twin-turbo acceleration of my first boss into successful self-employment. His skills did not come loaded with parasitic debt or conformity but with an asset that makes him money. My first boss was an accountant by profession but he taught himself a programming language that helped him develop his own software.
The underuse of information
The underuse of information is the biggest travesty of the free world. Inhale when you enter your neighbourhood bookshop. that smell? The aroma of limitless knowledge is that. Enter your neighbourhood library and take a look around. Amazing. Full walls of books are available for free. Imagine being able to comprehend every sentence, paragraph, and book. Would saying “I don’t know” hurt your chances of success?
The fact that education is free and most people opt out astounds me. All that is required for education is a ladder; it is unpicked fruit from a tree. People nevertheless hold fast to the restrictive notion that “I can’t afford education.”
Sorry, but it’s only a cover for laziness.
You can consume education for nothing. You have access to infinite information, and you are the only thing standing in your way. I mean YOU. Switch off the TV and pick up a book to read. Play Guitar Hero no more and head to the library.
Stop playing Gameboy Grab-Ass and start studying instead. A dedicated person reads a book every week. He goes to lectures. He stalks forums for businesses. He is using Google to research various subjects and methods.
You have the intrinsic ability to excel
You have the intrinsic ability to excel at everything that doesn’t need the physical capability. Anything! No book in the world can turn me into a professional basketball player or vocalist, but books have the power to turn beginners into masters in nonphysical fields. You can learn how to trade currencies expertly.
Business. Web development. Sales. A speaker in public. There is expertise available for any discipline that does not require physical coordination. What is required? Your pursuit commitment, followed by the big one: application.
Skills and knowledge are waiting for you. Nobody puts a book on your lap and hands you knowledge. You must seek it, process it, and then apply it. Knowledge acquisition and application will provide you with self-employment opportunities and make you wealthy.
So, where can you get infinite knowledge cheaply? It’s all around you, like the air you breathe, like an apple tree waiting to be picked.
What solutions exist?
A clever man commits no minor blunders.
Goethe, Writer
Construct a New Life for Yourself Via the Internet.
The internet is an ocean of opportunities if you took the time to research your interests and beyond. It gives you a gateway to opportunities that are beyond your country. Then why not go to Google and research anything you wish to learn more about? You can start your website, podcast, youtube channel etc. You can do any of these things or anything else you set your mind to if you devote sufficient time to it. You can begin to participate in blogs, websites, communities, and podcasts relevant to your interests. I’m sure you will discover some friends online that share your interests and would be delighted to get to know you.
What do you desire?
You can reorient the world around where and how you want to live. You can create your world. What do you desire? It’s all available with a few mouse clicks and some strategically invested time. It’s not magic; it’s motivation in action. You take small but consistent steps and gradually get there. And the more you get involved in the culture, community, or business arenas in which you want to participate, the more relationships you will develop with other people. And the more relationships you have, the more business opportunities will present themselves.
Patience
How long does this process take? What kind of return can you anticipate from this strategy? That is dependent on how you spend your time. However, rather than simply spending your free time, I recommend investing it in activities that contribute to your larger life goals. I’m confident that this approach will produce far more results than simply sitting on your couch, watching TV, feeling sorry for yourself, or complaining to your friends.
Invest your life more wisely. Change your surroundings. Redesign it to become the financially independent person that you desire.
Beginning with digital publication is the simplest option.
These are all chances for you to get involved and publish your digital content to take a piece of the media industry. You can make good money with cheap overhead and enjoy yourself while doing it if you choose a lucrative target market and continually provide that audience with information they find important or entertaining.
Establish a business to solve people’s problems.
Opportunities are dressed as unfilled needs, and when they ring your doorbell, answer it! Unanswered, opportunity leaves and rings another doorbell, knowing eventually, someone willing will answer.
Opportunity is rarely about a game-changing invention like the light bulb or the automobile, but rather about something as simple as an unmet or inadequately met need. An opportunity is a solution to a problem. Simplifying is an opportunity. Opportunity is a state of mind. Comfort comes from opportunity. Better service comes from opportunity. Opportunity is the removal of pain.
The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching
your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to
reach.
~ Benjamin Mays