Demanding prior work experience from new graduates is unfair and short-sighted

‘The government is determined forcefully to confront the scourge of unemployment, not by way of handouts but by the creation of work opportunities.” This was said in a State of the Nation Address (Sona) – but not the 2023 Sona.

Instead, it was in President Nelson Mandela’s 1994 address. Since then, South Africa’s unemployment rate has constantly stayed above 20%, while the world average has been between 5% and 6%.

According to the latest StatsSA data, 32.6% of unemployed people below the age of 24 are graduates with tertiary qualifications and 22.4% are between 25 and 34. Often, these graduates are written out of consideration by prospective employers because they do not have industry experience of a certain number of years. Such experience is most frequently a precondition that is non-negotiable.

The jobseekers are all too easily dismissed as being too steeped in theory, insufficient in practical knowledge, and likely to cost the employer resources and time to train. This is both unfair and short-sighted. This is why.

Writing off graduates on the basis of a lack of work experience is a misunderstanding of what universities do and what the academic environment ingrains in students. To achieve admission into tertiary studies – a highly selective process that takes and retains only the best of the best – students must be sufficiently driven to persist in a high-pressure environment in the face of incalculable challenges to achieve their goals. Many – indeed about half – do not graduate as they are forced to drop out.

Read in Daily Maverick: “University graduates are the new cheap labour – underemployed, underpaid and underused”

How does this multiyear, day-to-day labour, characterised by intricate time, resource and stakeholder management, fall short of the kind of experience to be gained from an industry environment? It is time to redefine the experience of academic training.

We are currently in a major transition in the world of work, grappling with the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, where skill sets require constant updating. But the concept of “lifelong education” is nothing new, having been championed since the 1970s.

A Cambridge University study commissioned by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) notes the renewed relevance of the concept amid debates about who should provide it. Wherever one falls on this aspect of the debate, this much is clear: in an era where technology is redefining whole industries, lifelong education must be embraced.

Necessarily, this should include on-the-job learning. A perceived lack of experience on entry should not bar employers from enlisting the services of clearly capable and self-driven young people who have been preparing for such opportunities for three or more years.

Universities, government and business, and other forms of employers must each recognise their role in the disjointed state of cooperation in which we find ourselves.

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