Skills Mismatch and Unemployment in Africa
Skills Mismatch and Unemployment in Africa
In the last ten years, Africa has produced nothing short of 10 million graduates annually on average, given the tons of students enrolled in tertiary education across the continent over the years. Between 2011 and 2019, the number of students enrolled in tertiary education in Sub-Saharan Africa rose by more than 30%, rising from 6.3 million to about 8.3 million. Likewise in the Northern region, the number of students enrolled rose from about 5.2 million in 2011 to about 6.9 million in 2019 representing about a 33% increase. While unarguably the number of graduates has been on the rise, can the same be said about the quality of the graduates? Are the graduates employable? Are the graduates equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to survive in the contemporary business world? Does the number of jobs available even match up with the number of adequately skilled graduates, if at all they exist?