NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED YOUTHS;

It is one thing to hear that there is unemployment among the youth of this country and another to actually be among that statistic. Having completed my Degree last year December, it’s just three months and I have started feeling the pinch of reality.While one may argue that three months is premature, but again when you are optimistic and ambitious as I and many other graduates one expects an invitation or two for an interview or even internship or graduate training. Well employment is elusive and the replies you get even evasive.As one of my colleagues said,” Unemployment is a ‘privilege’ of the wealthy, with their greater financial security enabling them to wait for ideal job”.

 

Graduates during a past graduation ceremony Maasai Mara University.    

So many graduates are produced annually from our universities in even larger numbers than the employment opportunities that are created. (Education, 2014) About 50,000 graduates are churned-up out of public and private universities in Kenya piling the number of unemployed youths to about 2.5 Million.Most of these graduates are now forced to do menial jobs to survive. Now these are just youths who had a chance to attend either university or other tertiary and or middle level colleges.

Lets now trace even the larger number of youths that the government can not yet account. In 2003,the government launched a free primary education initiative that saw about 7 Million pupils enroll for class one (KTN, 2015).In 2010 when these 7 million were supposed to sit for their class eight exams only 746,080 pupils enrolled and got their results. Out of that 521,601 enrolled for Form 1 in 2011 (NEWSPAPER, 2015).So question is where did 6.3 Million pupils get stuck or disappear within the eight years?

Later in 2014 when this number would be now in Form Four for their ordinary level exam,the latest results released showed 480,000 students sat the O’levelexam, another 7.8% wastage from the number that enrolled in 2011.Only 150,000 attained the minimum grade C+ for entry into university. So lets assume all the students (which again is impractical) whose results were released get a chance to join universities, colleges and polytechnics to work with the previous deviation.

In total from 2003 to 2014 only about 6% complete the education system to the O’level exam.A worrying percentage indeed. This statistic means that we have about 90% or 6 million youths to add to the previous 2.5 Million graduands who are unemployed. A certain level of education,especially if it is tertiary may make you an entrepreneur of your own or give you the patience to be optimistic that you may or will certainly get a job. But the other 6 Million who we are sure didn’t complete the O’ level exams or the basic class eight KCPE, where do they go to. This is the number that is susceptible to pressure frustration and any Tom Dick and Harry who tells them do this and that and you get huge cash.The six million is the source of the radicalization process that the government complains about. The six million is the source of youths that are addicted to drug abuse. This is the source of young and energetic youths gunned down everyday in crime related activities.All these challenges that the youths face all rise from or can be linked to unemployment.

In the end the devil does much of his welding in an idle workshop, and as long as these youths will fall victims of this system and provide that tempt able platform  then we still have a lot of related challenges to deal with.