After Success in National Exams, What Next?

With the recent release of national examination results in Kenya, the question of employment opportunities for the rising number of graduates of institutions of higher learning in Kenya remains pressing and relevant. These new examination champions will add to the number of graduates seeking employment after one to six years of formal education in TVETs, professional colleges, or universities. That’s why it is important to take a look at what some African lecturers researched on, during the peak of COVID-19 infections, as viable ways of enhancing graduate employability.

Leading Ideas on Youth Employability

In 2020, the ACCESS Ideas Competition recognised three African lecturers for their innovative approaches to enhancing graduate employability. The competition attracted 34 submissions from 79 participants across six African countries, including Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Tunisia. The ACCESS (African Centre for Career Enhancement & Skills Support) project, coordinated by Leipzig University, seeks to address the high unemployment rates among African university graduates by fostering innovative educational concepts that enhance employability.

It is worth contacting them to read more about what their research has revealed so far, as that would help enrich policy development for the Ministries of Labour and of Education and Youth in Africa.

Here are the 2020 heroes:

• Houinsou Dedehouanou, University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin: Management of Training within Enterprises in Support to the Curricula of the Universities.

• Innocent Ndikumana, University of Lay Adventists of Kigali (UNILAK), Rwanda: Integrating “LDP“ Model in Higher Learning Institutions’ Curricula: Learning, Doing and Productizing

• Nashon Adero, Taita Taveta University, Kenya (Founder of Impact Borderless Digital): Addressing Youth Unemployment by Matching Lifelong Skills Development Needs with Talents and Labour Market Demographics 

Each winner was awarded a three-month scholarship to further develop their ideas aimed at improving employability skills within university curricula.

You can watch the ACCESS Idea Competition Award Ceremony held on November 27, 2020, which features the announcement of the winners and discussions on their innovative ideas to enhance graduate employability in Africa. The video is available on the ACCESS Centre’s website: https://www.uni-leipzig.de/en/newsdetail/artikel/access-idea-competition-2020-10-28