Namibia oversupplying health and education graduates to overwhelmed job market

Namibia’s job market is overwhelmed, with thousands more graduates than jobs available in the health and education sectors.

This is contained in a Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB) report, which adds that other oversaturated industries include the business, commerce and social sciences sectors.

“Higher education institutions continue to produce an excess of graduates in business, commerce, management, education, training, development, health sciences, and social services,” the report states.

Two years ago, The Namibian reported that between 2018 and 2022, the University of Namibia (Unam) alone produced 10 390 teachers and a further 2 100 graduates in health-related fields.

Health Professions Council of Namibia chief executive Cornelius Weyulu says this is affecting nursing and midwifery training, contributing to the high unemployment rate among nursing and midwifery graduates.

Weyulu yesterday told The Namibian there is a need to cap the number of health graduates in Namibia, particularly in fields such as nursing and medicine.

He said the number of enrolled nurses in the country stands at 6 662, while there are about 7 145 registered nurse and midwife practitioners.

Secretary general of the Namibia Nurses Union (Nanu) Junias Shilunga on Tuesday said the government should consider sending some unemployed nurses to other countries, such as Kenya.

He also attributed the oversupply of healthcare workers to the increase in institutions producing nurses.

“Now we have an influx of health training centres in the country, and they are not regulated. Some even have two intakes per year. This is really a big challenge in terms of supply and demand,” he said.

Shilunga said there is also a need to cut on the registration of new health institutions.

It is high time the government makes agreements with other countries with a shortage of nurses, he said.

“We must also be able to export the knowledge,” he said.

Ministry of Health and Social Services spokesperson Walters Kamaya this week said he could not comment on the report, saying he had not seen it.

However, executive director of health and social services Penda Ithindi on Monday said the ministry would employ over 2 000 clinical and non-clinical staff members.

He said the accelerated nationwide recruitment drive is part of efforts to strengthen healthcare services and support health facility decongestion across the country.

The recruits will include 1 713 clinical and 337 non-clinical staff members to improve staffing levels in hospitals, health centres and clinics.

Health minister Esperance Luvindao this week said while this recruitment is still not enough, it is a start.

“We recognise that these recruitments will not meet all our needs, but we must start somewhere, and this is a good start,” she said.

The ministry urged all qualified unemployed health professionals to take up the recruitment opportunity.

EDUCATORS

Earlier in July, president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, during a meeting with unemployed teachers, said the government cannot employ every qualified teacher because recruitment depends on market demand.

The president at the time said the number of unemployed teachers was expected to exceed 15 000 by the end of this year.

She said not all of them can be absorbed into the public service.

The president said she understood unemployed graduates’ frustrations.

Deputy executive director of higher education, training, and innovation Lisho Mundia has warned that the country’s persistent unemployment rate among graduates is being driven not only by a skills mismatch, but by deeper structural economic constraints.

Mundia says the problem lies in an economy that is not diversified or expanding quickly enough to absorb the increasing number of graduates produced each year, particularly from technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions and universities.

“When you have a structural or economic constraint, that goes to say the current economy is not diversified enough to absorb all types of skills.

“Even if we talk about a skills mismatch, the contributing factor remains an economic constraint.

It means the economy is not growing or is not diverse enough to absorb what is being produced,” he says.

He says the relevance of training offered at TVET colleges and universities should not be dismissed, pointing out that many programmes align with emerging sectors.

However, industries are simply not expanding fast enough to create employment opportunities at the scale required.

Using green hydrogen as an example of a promising new sector, Mundia says even though institutions graduate large numbers of technicians in solar energy, mechatronics, and other modern trades, the job market remains too small to accommodate them.

Mundia says society often expects graduates to find employment immediately after completing their studies, but such expectations will remain unmet unless the economy expands and diversifies.

Namibia National Teachers Union (Nantu) secretary general Loide Shaanika says Namibia should address the mismatch of skills and the wrong deployment of teachers in the system.

She says given overcrowded classrooms and not adhering to agreed on and approved norms, Nantu cannot agree that there is an oversupply of teachers in Namibia.

“Nantu calls for the ministry to conduct an audit in addressing the skills mismatch . . . We condemn the report entirely as it is not substantiated or supported by any evidence given the above,” she says.

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