Many graduates are said to lack the necessary skills required by companies [Photo/CapitalFM]
Following a recent survey conducted by the World Bank, the bank has highlighted the gap between university education and labor market needs as the cause of high unemployment in Kenya.
According to the bank many graduates in the sub-Saharan Africa region do not posses the skills needed to work in the economy.
“TVET and higher education often have poor links to labour demand, lack diverse pathways that can allow students to build skills cumulatively, and have financing and accountability mechanisms that are not tied to results,” the bank said in its Pulse report released Wednesday.
Several graduates that took part in the survey aimed at testing their productivity and employ-ability failed.
“In Kenya, less than one per cent of tertiary-educated adults who completed the reading skills test achieved levels 4 or 5 in proficiency (for example, synthesising or integrating information from multiple texts),” the study said. “More than a quarter were at level 1 or below, meaning that they cannot enter personal information into a document or identify a single piece of information from a simple text, even when it appears identically in the text.” Companies are said to be behind unemployment citing that graduates do not posses the necessary skills to perform tasks.