Students Need Internships

I WOULD like to react to a conclusion made by the Namibian Employment Federation (NEF) on Tuesday during the briefing of a parliamentary standing committee on their assessment of the problems and challenges in the implementation of the Affirmative Action Act.

While agreeing with the fact that the many graduates are lacking skills needed for specific job positions, I should also be forgiven for stressing that the NEF assessment was very narrow and have overlooked a magnitude of factors. One of the important factors that should have enjoyed considerable consideration in the assessment is the fact that what you study at university or whatever the institution is basically theory.Given the economic standing of most of our local institutions of higher learning, one would realise that there are no adequate hands-on facilities where students can acquire practical skills.Here we should not blame the institutions, especially the state-owned ones, as these rely on Government funding for most of their major projects.The capacity of these institutions also cannot accommodate huge numbers of students who would otherwise make a valuable monetary contribution.Another major overlooked factor is that practical experience is largely acquired from internships, which can hardly be secured by students.Unlike in many fields of studies such as education, law, nursing and some engineering studies, a bunch of courses, especially those in the economic and management confines, hardly get such chances.Do we deny students internship opportunities so that they qualify for poor wages as they lack skills? Students spend four years of their studies applying for internships, but to no avail.In its assessment, did the NEF realise the need for something, say legislation, that compels organisations to have internship programmes so as to prepare our relatively young economy to grow by training our own people? Or are we still ready to keep on importing people from beyond our borders to keep on securing jobs at the expense of our own local graduates? In its submission, the NEF said that the skills shortage in Namibia slowed down the growth of the economy and affected business decisions of whether or not to invest, expand or mechanise their operations.Walk the talk, NEF, what should we do to improve the situation, blame the unemployability of our graduates or fill the loopholes such as the lack of internships to shape our people? My suggestion is that if we are to have a much-needed broader pool of skills, legislation should be introduced to make it a responsibility for every organisation on the local scene to have an internship programme that gives practical exposure to our students.Let Namibia struggle with big issues such as the country’s industrial transformation, the establishment of our own independent power and oil supplies, rather than simple things such as enriching our people with skills.Toivo WindhoekOne of the important factors that should have enjoyed considerable consideration in the assessment is the fact that what you study at university or whatever the institution is basically theory.Given the economic standing of most of our local institutions of higher learning, one would realise that there are no adequate hands-on facilities where students can acquire practical skills.Here we should not blame the institutions, especially the state-owned ones, as these rely on Government funding for most of their major projects.The capacity of these institutions also cannot accommodate huge numbers of students who would otherwise make a valuable monetary contribution.Another major overlooked factor is that practical experience is largely acquired from internships, which can hardly be secured by students.Unlike in many fields of studies such as education, law, nursing and some engineering studies, a bunch of courses, especially those in the economic and management confines, hardly get such chances.Do we deny students internship opportunities so that they qualify for poor wages as they lack skills? Students spend four years of their studies applying for internships, but to no avail.In its assessment, did the NEF realise the need for something, say legislation, that compels organisations to have internship programmes so as to prepare our relatively young economy to grow by training our own people? Or are we still ready to keep on importing people from beyond our borders to keep on securing jobs at the expense of our own local graduates? In its submission, the NEF said that the skills shortage in Namibia slowed down the growth of the economy and affected business decisions of whether or not to invest, expand or mechanise their operations.Walk the talk, NEF, what should we do to improve the situation, blame the unemployability of our graduates or fill the loopholes such as the lack of internships to shape our people? My suggestion is that if we are to have a much-needed broader pool of skills, legislation should be introduced to make it a responsibility for every organisation on the local scene to have an internship programme that gives practical exposure to our students.Let Namibia struggle with big issues such as the country’s industrial transformation, the establishment of our own independent power and oil supplies, rather than simple things such as enriching our people with skills.Toivo Windhoek

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