Munyaradzi Musamba

This is Andy Burnham, the new British Prime Minister. He is addressing an issue that I have been talking about on this page for years: the obsession with university degrees that often do little to improve the employment prospects of our young people. There is enormous peer pressure for young people to go to university because many have been brought up to believe that a degree is automatically superior to a qualification from a polytechnic or a technical college. Yet that thinking is based on an outdated education model that no longer reflects the realities of today’s global economy. Many young people never receive proper career guidance. They are encouraged to pursue degrees without first asking a simple question. What opportunities will this qualification create? Meanwhile, careers in electrical engineering, plumbing, welding, fitting and turning, construction, refrigeration, vehicle mechanics, and many other skilled trades are overlooked, even though they are among the most financially rewarding professions today. I have experienced this myself. I have been trying to get someone to do a relatively small job at my home in the United Kingdom. The earliest available appointment was two weeks away. To hang about 20 framed portraits on the walls of a house, a handyman charges between £600 and £700 for roughly two hours of work. Plumbing is even more expensive. These skilled trades often pay better than many occupations requiring university degrees that have little demand in the labour market. That is why I am pleased to hear the British Prime Minister speaking openly about this issue. It is encouraging to see a leader acknowledging something that many of us have been saying for years. When I look at Zimbabwe’s history, particularly during the period that many people refer to as Rhodesia’s economic peak, one thing stands out. The country’s industrial success was built not on universities, but on the expansion of technical colleges, vocational training centres, and polytechnics. The University of Rhodesia produced administrators, professionals, and managers, but the people who built the factories, maintained the machinery, wired the electrical systems, constructed the roads and bridges, and kept heavy industry running largely came through technical and vocational education. At one point, Rhodesia operated one of the most sophisticated railway systems in Africa, and it was even ahead of the British railway system at the time. The system was not run primarily by university graduates; it was built, maintained, and operated largely by graduates of technical colleges. Yet it became the backbone of the Rhodesian economy, transporting raw materials, manufactured goods, and agricultural products across the country and beyond its borders. Industrial economies are built by skilled technicians as much as they are by university graduates. This is also personal for me. My late father ran a training programme in Murewa where he taught many former liberation war fighters practical skills such as carpentry and construction after the war. I watched him doing it. Those men left with trades that enabled them to build businesses and support their families. Some of them became extremely successful. When I was imprisoned for exposing corruption, one of the people my father had trained arrived at my home and left US$5,000 to ensure that I had whatever I needed while I was in prison. He had gone on to establish a successful construction company operating in Namibia, South Africa, and Botswana. His success was not built on a fashionable university degree. It was built on practical skills that created real economic value. That is why career guidance matters. Young people deserve honest advice, not outdated assumptions. We should stop treating university as the only respectable path to success and instead encourage young people to choose careers based on opportunity, aptitude, and the needs of the economy. I am deliberately not naming particular degrees because I do not want to discourage those who are already studying them. However, we cannot ignore the reality that some qualifications have very limited employment prospects. Even British newspapers such as The London Times regularly analyse graduate outcomes, comparing degrees that consistently lead to well-paid employment with those that often leave graduates underemployed or unemployed. As adults, parents, teachers, policymakers, and influencers, we have a responsibility to guide young people honestly. We must stop romanticising qualifications simply because they come from universities. Today, in the United Kingdom, an experienced plumber, electrician, or heating engineer can earn considerably more than many graduates in professions that require years at university. That tells us something about where the modern economy places value. Africa’s industrial revolution will not be driven by producing endless numbers of graduates whose skills do not match the demands of the economy. It will be driven by expanding technical colleges, vocational institutions, apprenticeships, and polytechnics that produce electricians, engineers, mechanics, builders, welders, technicians, and other skilled professionals capable of building industries rather than merely administering them. That is one of the most important lessons history has already taught us. The evidence is there for anyone willing to look at it objectively. Andy Burnham emphasised this reality by announcing a major investment in Britain’s nuclear deterrent that will create and support 22,000 apprenticeships. That is what political leadership should be looking at and working towards accomplishing not just endless empty speeches.