Enhancing Capacity for Sustainable Education and Youth Employment in Africa

Abstract

The types of employability skills and how to infuse employability skills into education is increasingly clear in theory, but in practice, these are proving difficult for the higher education (HE) system in developing countries. A key question is why and how can HE system focus on graduate outcomes? It could be argued that the African debilitating unemployment crisis has been mainly because of the low levels of skills and low standard of education. Building on ‘postcolonial theory’, this chapter focuses on graduate outcomes to examine the current unemployment situation in Africa, causes and solutions to the challenges. By exploring issues related to over-reliance on outdated curriculum, poor teaching pedagogy, low government expenditure on education and ineffective education policies, we hope to contribute to the knowledge of ways to improve HE, labour force and sustainable development. This conceptual contribution argues that HE policies focus should be on skills development, vocational education, digital innovations and less emphasises on degree qualifications.

Citation

Nwajiuba, C.A., Binuomote, M.O. and Igwe, P.A. (2022), "Enhancing Capacity for Sustainable Education and Youth Employment in Africa", Caputo, A., Lock, D. and Hack-Polay, D. (Ed.) International Environments and Practices of Higher Education, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 31-39. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-590-620221004