Learning for Life, Work and the Future Initial ... - Unesco-Unevoc

Learning for Life, Work and the Future Participants’ Papers Page 83
• Co-operation with other parties such as donors,
churches and NGOs, and through partnership with
existing trainers
• No residential training to reduce costs. Training to
be brought to the people through the establishment
of two VTCs per province and at least one per
town, with two each for Chitungwiza, Harare and
Bulawayo
• Community-oriented curricula, demand-driven
short and long courses
• Democratisation of training: open entry with
literacy and numeracy as the criteria for selection
• Entrepreneurial skills a requirement
• Establishment of VTCs to be spearheaded by parent
colleges already in existence
• Lecturers to emphasize practical skills acquisition.
In Zimbabwe, the establishment of VTCs was jumpstarted
with funding from UNESCO for intensive skills
training for self-employment in Bulawayo and Gokwe.
The author was involved in spearheading this project in
Bulawayo. Other funds to run the VTCs came from
the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund,
ZIMDEF. The project has achieved some measurable
success in dissuading school-leavers from roaming the
streets or crossing borders to seek jobs there.
The new approach to training, the Zimbabwe Self-
Employment Skills Training Model (ZSSM) designed
by St. Raza, is given below.
(1) Pre-Training – Product/Service Identification
and Selection
• Business opportunity guidance
• Market survey
• Industrial attachment
(2) Training – Technical Skills Acquisition Based on
Identified Opportunity
• Entrepreneurial skills acquisition in Awareness of
Entrepreneurship, Achievement Motivation, Entrepreneurial
Skills and Management Training and a
Survey of Industrial Environment.
(3) Post-Training Support Services
• Attachment of students/graduates to Production
Units of the college to imitate real-life self-employment,
raise start-up capital and create confidence
and experience in the venture whilst under the
guidance of lecturers
• Establish backyard business
• Self-employment in factory shells
• Creation of Graduate Self-employment Support
Systems (GSSS), giving:
• Technical support and follow-up by lecturers
and industrial experts to ensure technical
viability.
• Managerial follow-up by lecturers and industrialists
to ensure managerial and financial
viability.
• Infrastructural support – Local Authority to
ensure creation of factory shells, land and
building support at affirmative action rates.
• Financial support from NGOs, micro-finance
houses and banks to be solicited.
Committees representing these four areas need to be
set up to offer support and/or follow-up.
6. Proposed Method of Establishing VTCs
• Identification of existing facilities through local
authorities.
• Inspection of the infrastructure by experts.
• Conduct of needs analysis to determine demanddriven
courses required by community.
• Determination of venues for the courses.
• Appointment of lecturers based on the courses in
demand.
• Enrolment of students based on identified
opportunities in the market.
• Order and purchase of appropriate consumables and
of basic machinery that cannot be made by the
students themselves.
• Start of training based on identified opportunities
and entrepreneurial skills.
• Offer of post-training support to ensure selfemployment.
Grierson (1997) concurs with his three stages:
Selection, Training and Self-Employment.
7. Conclusion
The author feels that the use of VTCs as a way of
reducing unemployment can be adopted by SADC
member states in addition to the conventional training
methods of institutional, apprenticeship and skills
upgrading.
John Grierson, in Small Enterprise Development Vol.
11 No. 3 (Sept 2000), recognised that training for selfemployment
should not be mistaken for vocational
training in general. One cannot expect that once technical
skills have been acquired, self-employment will
automatically ensue. The Zimbabwe situation is witness
to this. Although many are graduating from technical
colleges, they still go back to the streets for lack
of employment. We now need not just skills for wage-