Half of university graduates in East Africa are ill-prepared for the job market.
A study conducted by the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) and the East African Business Council (EABC) to establish employers’ perceptions of graduates shows that more than 50 per cent of university graduates are half-baked as they lack basic workplace proficiencies.
This means university students are graduating without attaining basic and technical skills required in the job market, denying the five East African Community (EAC) economies the quality human capital that they need to grow.
“Universities in the East African region are producing a theoretical, unskilled and unpractical labour force,” Mayunga Nkunya, executive secretary of IUCEA, told an EAC higher education quality assurance forum in Arusha last week.
“Employers told us that graduates lack self-confidence at work, they can’t translate the knowledge they got in universities into work and they normally wait to be told what to do.”
NMG
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