Prime
Between prestige and return on investment– the real value of education
Author: Raymond Mugisha. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- It may also be useful for those that have graduated from universities to pursue the said vocations, and not let themselves be held hostage by white-collar mindsets that academic qualifications of privilege often create.
It is the joy of every parent or guardian to register successful outcomes of the education of their children. That is why it is common to hear parents enumerate the academic achievements of their children by simply citing the number of academic degrees garnered by their different children.
Parents would naturally be happy to see each of their children as a University graduate. When you attend social functions you will get a feel of this in the speeches of parents talking about their children. To send a child to university and have the child graduate, itself, counts for a level of success. Every parent who can mobilize the means works to have their children attend university and acquire a degree qualification.
For the above reasons, among others, there have been a growing number of youths graduating out of universities every year. Media reports indicate that, between the year 2018/19 and 2019/20, there was a seventeen percent increase in enrolment in nine public universities from 90,359 to 105,988 students in Uganda.
According to Uganda’s National Planning Authority statistics released in early 2021, seven hundred thousand people join the job market every year regardless of qualification but only ninety thousand get work. This means that about eighty seven percent of people graduating from training institutions cannot find jobs.
A couple of research publications have also highlighted that low levels of entrepreneurship and the unwillingness of youths to join vocational education to gain the skills necessary for widely available low to mid-skilled jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa is a major cause of unemployment among educated youths.
As such, it may as well be said that the parent that succeeds in having their children graduate from university may not necessarily witness a transition of the said children into employment and financial self-reliance. The parent may have to sustain the livelihood of the same children for some considerable time, well after their graduation. It is highly probable that the story could be different if the children instead acquired skills to perform low to mid-skilled jobs, since these kinds of jobs are more available in our markets. The challenge, however, is that university degrees present a high prestige offering and it is not easy for parents to guide their children to less prestigious qualifications, even when these qualification offer higher employment prospects. It is important therefore, that we look at the value of acquiring an education and its end result on the individual, as well as the relevant benefits to other stakeholders in the process of educating the individual.
Although there are many, and varied advantages of education, it remains that education is an economic investment. It must return a profit-bearing financial return for it to make complete sense.
If the cost of an education, in terms of direct costs as well as the value of the time committed to it by the student, and other charges, cannot be recouped in reasonable time, or ever, then that education can end up being a loss making venture. Even if the social satisfaction derived from the venture by both parents or guardians and their children was to be valued, it may not be worth the investment.
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It is better to target education as a financial investment and strategize to have it impart skills necessary to perform the widely available jobs, even when the said jobs do not offer white-collar privilege. Personally, I have come across a number of youths who earn a decent living out of skills such as welding, molding and laying of pavers, and other same grade talents. In some instances they earn much more than their age-mates employed in high-end corporate entities, leave alone the individuals who have qualified from universities and failed to get jobs, with whom there is no comparison at all. These young fellows, equipped with low to mid-skill capabilities, are in fact able to get contract assignments and employ other youths to execute contracts.
Expectedly, most youths that comfortably pursue study courses that impart such skills are from relatively economically disadvantaged households. Their parents often times cannot afford to pay their children’s way to university degrees and other prestigious qualifications. The children, however, tend to have more opportunities to financially transform their lives since they rank better at employability.
We need to be deliberate about changing our mindsets about education. It is fine for children to pursue careers in the low to mid-skilled vocations, even when their parents can afford to pay for the fanciest academic qualifications.
It may also be useful for those that have graduated from universities to pursue the said vocations, and not let themselves be held hostage by white-collar mindsets that academic qualifications of privilege often create.
Raymond Mugisha is a Chartered Risk Analyst and risk management consultant
