Is “employability” your goal?
Generally speaking from a stakeholder’s POV, understanding the very slight difference between “Unemployment” and “Unemployability” goes a long way in determining the best course of policy action to implement for the education or skill acquisition sector, curriculum to design for schools, and decisions to build solutions to solve critical education-related problems in Africa.
While Unemployment is a term referring to individuals who are seeking a job but are unable to find a job, Unemployability refers to a situation whereby an individual is unsuitable or unfit for an available job.
There are plausible indications that by 2050, about a third of Africa’s one billion youths (that’s over 300 million!) will lack basic proficiency in math, reading, and other skills and subjects, meaning that millions will be unemployable and unproductive.
Today’s educational shortcomings continue to weaken Africa’s development capacity. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has reported that Africa needs another one million university-trained researchers to tackle its most pressing health, energy, and development problems.
Holding on to these thoughts… Why do African youths need to start making proactive and precise decisions about their skillsets and careers?!
Decision making is a cognitive process that helps to identify and select suitable sets of belief or course of action amongst many possible options. This process can get really tedious as many youths often say that they find it difficult to make rather important decisions, especially when it comes to matters like, “what makes them employable, or how they can be the best fit for a job or career”.
Unavoidably, we all have to make decisions all the time, ranging from trivial issues like what to have for lunch, right up to life-changing decisions like where and what to study, and sometimes, career, investment, and several other important choices. Some people put off making these decisions by actively searching for more information or getting other people to offer their recommendations — meanwhile, one has to overcome one's demons by oneself.
The career decision-making process requires deep thinking and conceptualization around several factors such as interests, values, talents, and abilities of a person — devoid of environmental, socio-cultural, and religious beliefs that have somewhat been responsible for certain decisions mostly in developing nations around the world.
At Triangle Africa, we have a core objective to enhance learning and prepare Africa youths for employability and the future of work using tools like the Interest Discovery Model. This model allows us to understand learners' interests and personalities in making recommendations for learning and career paths.
Our Interest Discovery system simply allows individuals to make career, business, or study decisions based on their values, interests, soft skills, and aptitudes, in combination with their personality type, to ensure these decisions are a good fit and completely appropriate.
Over time, also understanding the importance of Interest Discovery could help shape our ability in taking a proactive approach to making career decisions, acquiring the right skills (professional and other essential soft skills), etc. which will, in turn, strengthen the correlation between career fulfillment, our definition of success and life satisfaction.
Go ahead, take the bold step to find out what your interests and employability ratings are — we are sure you know a young person who needs to figure out their path, be nice and save a life! Share this post and our website with them.
