LET me begin this journey of walking you through the National Critical Skills Audit Report recently launched by President Emmerson Mnangagwa, by quoting him verbatim:
“Since the attainment of our independence in 1980, Government has long realised that investing in human capital development is critical to the sustainable development of a competent workforce required for economic competitiveness regionally and internationally.
In order to bring efficiency in the area of human capital development, Government needs a clear picture not only of how labour markets and economies are changing, but of the extent to which the citizens are equipping themselves with the skills demanded in the 21st Century.
For our country to achieve high levels of economic growth and address our social challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality, we must work together to invest in relevant education and training and skills to achieve our vision of a skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth trajectory.”
What follows is a verbatim presentation of the results of the critical skills audit which, of essence, must inform all the strategic plans of all the newly established ministries.
As a matter of fact, all their strategic documents must respond to the gaps identified by the National Critical Skills Audit.
And all Zimbabweans need to understand these gaps too as they are active partakers of the reformation agenda.
We need everyone on board.
Zimbabwe needs to be a middle-income economy by 2030.
In order to achieve this, there is need to access the critical skills needed for the attainment of this vision.
The critical skills required in the economy are grouped according to the six skills clusters, namely Engineering and Technology; Natural and Applied Sciences; Business and Commerce; Agriculture; Medical and Health Sciences, as well as Applied Arts and Humanities.
Assessment of the critical skills gaps revealed significant critical skills deficits, save for business and commerce.
Table 1 below summaries the findings:
Table 1: Summary of Audit Results
NB:
For Engineering and Technology as well as Medicine and Health Sciences, the deficit is measured in terms of registered practitioners per population, relative to OECD levels.
For the rest of the other four clusters, the deficit is measured using the levels of output per population, relative to OECD levels.
In the table above, negative percentage indicates deficit while positive percentage indicates surplus.
The analysis was benchmarked using the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) standards by factoring in GDP, GDP per capita, population, average OECD GDP per capita and weighted GDP contribution to employment as key variables.
This was further contextualised according to Zimbabwean standards
The skills analysis as shown in the table above revealed that, save for the Business and Commerce skills cluster, which has a surplus of 21 percent all the other skills clusters have skills deficits.
Of those with a deficit of critical skills only the Applied Arts and Humanities had a modest deficit (18 percent), with the rest having critical shortages above 90 percent. The Engineering and Technology skills cluster showed a skills deficit of 93,57 percent.
The Natural and Applied Sciences skills cluster showed a skills output deficit of 96,91 percent. The Business and Commerce skills cluster showed a skills output surplus of 21 percent.
Agriculture skills cluster showed a skills deficit of 88 percent. With agriculture contributing 68 percent of those in employment in Zimbabwe this shows the majority of them are not formally skilled. Medical and Health Sciences skills cluster showed a skills deficit of 95 percent. The Applied Arts and Humanities skills cluster showed a skills output deficit -18 percent.
Therefore, in order for Zimbabwe to be a middle-income economy by 2030, focused skills training is required in the above areas. Scholarships, curricula and syllabi should therefore focus on these areas. Educational programmes must be scaled up to produce multi-disciplinary service delivery teams which include a carefully balanced mix of critical skills necessary for industrialisation and modernisation.