Despite Africa’s rising economic power, a damaging divide remains between business communities and scientists on the continent. Technical knowledge is not keeping pace with economic growth, and business leaders in Africa regularly complain about the lack of local candidates with technical skills.
In fact, the most recent ‘Annual Global CEO survey’ found 90% of CEOs in Africa are highly concerned about the low availability of key competences.
The problem is not just a lack of skills, but a lack of appropriate skills. Employers surveyed across 36 African nations as part of the African Economic Outlook pointed to the mismatch in technical and industry relevant skills being more important than the lack of skills overall.
Take the agriculture sector, arguably Africa’s most important industry. Currently the sector contributes 13% of the continent’s GDP, yet only 2% of African students study it at university.
This is actually the same amount as in Europe, where agriculture contributes a little over 1% to the GDP of its nations. Most worryingly, Africa owns 60% of the world’s uncultivated land suited for crops, but doesn’t have the scientific knowledge to make the most of it.
Why does this happen? For decades, major international donors and policymakers have prioritized primary and secondary education, which has distracted from investment in tertiary education in some African countries.
Providing higher education in technical fields can be far more expensive than the social sciences, forcing increasingly cash-strapped public education institutions to cut expansion in these areas.
At the same time, businesses have often focused on short-term gains and considered investing in technical and scientific skills too time consuming.
Young scientists need investment and assistance
Businesses should further provide talented young scientists with financial assistance so that they can pursue postgraduate and postdoctoral training in African universities, by increasing industry focused scholarships and placements.
Major global players including IBM are doing so with its IBM-Research in Kenya, which has established a new resident scientist program for schools in Kenya and other African countries.
The applicants are leading scientists and researchers from pre and post-doctoral backgrounds, as well as from academia, government, or industry, and work with IBM researchers in the physical lab environment.
Such initiatives allow private companies to build a pipeline of skilled local talent and incentivize the best and the brightest to stay on the continent.
Africa’s private sector could look to the most innovative international models for inspiration, too. Professor Juma has encouraged African countries to consider the example of South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH).
POSTECH was actually the brain child of Professor Hogil Kim, the founding president of the university and Tae-Joon Park, chair of the Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO), a private company.
While POSCO’s initial goal was to train world-class engineers for its own operations, POSTECH now has a major role in educational reform in Korea and is recognized as a leader in science and engineering education in Asia.
Given the 11 million young Africans expected to enter the job market each year for the next decade, businesses can have all the scientists, engineers and technicians they need on their doorstep.
But only if they properly work with and invest in the institutions that train them.
A very interesting article… thank you…
Having scientists, engineers and technicians at our doorsteps is not enough. Africa needs the best heads. The quality of these professionals should be the main concern. The question is how do we achieve this. I personally due to work experience, do not believe that the involvement of the private sector in Africa is the solution though the referred sector can play a crucial role as the examples that come forth in the article. There is a pest in Africa in general that does not permit the realisation of what Africa needs most – qualified and competent people. The pest i refer to is CORRUPTION. First and foremost the actors and actresses in both the private sector and public sector are almost inseparable. In some cases they are the same people. This creates a conflict of interests and the private sector ends up being a passive player i many areas that are crucial for development – economical and educational research. Secondly many african countries have offers to educate their students in universities of countries with leading scientific and engineering knowledge. Unfortunately the students that are sent to study in these countries are not the best students. They are children, families and friends of those that are responsible to award the scholarships and are not top students. This is so because the responsibility of choosing who is best qualified lies in the hands of the receiving country and not the one that is offering. As a result Africa ends up having not very competent graduates. Thirdly it is very difficult to conduct research in many african countries as institutions tend to hold back vital information, due to politics that is so suspicious of ideas and intentions of those that are not part of the established system.
Africa i must say that, lacks good political leaders and leaders in general. Once the leadership issue is resolved, Africa can easily overcome the issue of lack of competent scientists, engineers and technician.