(DTIS) Update, Volume 1 – Main report - Enhanced Integrated ...

eform. Trade liberalization and regional integration can be used to advance regulatory reform, enhancecompetition, and deal with labor mobility issues that are crucial in professional services. Policy action at the national levelReforms at the national level need to focus on the development of framework conditions that addressskills shortages and skills mismatches, and that attempt to facilitate the growth of professional servicesin Burundi through regulatory reforms.Education reforms: Faculties and other training programs must be improved and expanded to satisfyprofessional training needs, but this must be planned and carried out in a manner that will increase notonly the quantity but also the quality of offerings. Merely certifying schools and granting more degreesor certificates to poorly-trained students would not address the needs, and instead would worsen theoverall situation in the long run by infusing poorly equipped graduates into the system.International and national experiences related to quality assurance of secondary and higher educationcould serve as a model for Burundi. For example, the program that is currently being developed by theInter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) in terms of designing university curricula andresearch, and creating university/industry partnerships for fostering knowledge, could provide guidancefor education reforms in Burundi. Also, collaboration with the IUCEA could contribute to the reductionof education-related differences that fragment the regional market for education.Moreover, Burundi needs to put special emphasis on the development of programs for middle levelprofessionals. Malawi’s experience with courses for middle-level legal professionals 106 could be a usefulmodel for other African countries, including Burundi.Finally, the absence of links between educational systems, employers, and users of services preventsyoung graduates from finding employment, and further explains the attrition of skills in severalprofessions. Several stakeholders from the private sector have emphasized the coordination problemsbetween employers, professional associations, and education institutions in the content of educationalprograms for engineers and accountants. Policy actions to encourage collaboration between universities,professional associations, and the private sector, for example through internships, could help studentsacquire skills and practical training. The Structured Engineers Apprenticeship Program (SEAP) forGraduate Engineers developed by the Engineers Registration Board in Tanzania provides an examplethat could be followed by Burundi.Regulatory reforms: Reforms need to focus on incremental, qualitative improvements in domesticregulation:a. Disproportionate cumulative entry requirements need to be relaxed. For example, narrowingthe scope of exclusive tasks in certain professions would contribute to this goal. Exclusiverights can lead to increased specialization of professionals and guarantee a higher quality ofservice, but if they create monopolies they can have adverse price and allocation effects,especially when granted for services for which adequate quality can be provided at a lowercost by less-regulated middle-level professionals.106 Some successful initiatives have encouraged the education, training, and development of middle-levelprofessionals. The Paralegal Advisory Service in Malawi is an innovative program that offers paralegal aid incriminal cases and has so far trained 38 paralegals. Candidates receive training from NGOs working in partnershipwith key stakeholders, including Malawi Prisons, Police Services, and the court system. The paralegals are thenable to work with these same institutions, making the arrangement beneficial for both sides. The program has beenso successful that the organization is being transformed into the Paralegal Advisory Services Institute and isintroducing similar programs throughout Africa and even further abroad in Bangladesh.128 / 153