Story by John Nhandara
Government says it is in the process of developing a roadmap for a comprehensive national skills audit to address the country’s skills gap.
The development of the skills audit roadmap is expected to tackle the skills gaps affecting the national workforce, especially in areas of business and commerce, engineering and technology as well as medical and health sciences, among other sectors.
Skills Audit and Development Minister, Professor Paul Mavima gives a background of the programme, while highlighting milestones that have been recorded under the ministry.
“Zimbabwe carried out a critical skills audit in 2018 which established that the country has a skills base of only 38.25 percent and a skills shortage of 61.75 percent in the critical areas. Therefore the ministry was mandated to carry out a comprehensive national skills audit to enable government and stakeholders to develop targeted interventions to address skills gaps, thereby driving economic growth, productivity, competitiveness and prosperity,” Hon Mavima said.
Meanwhile, government concluded a rapid evaluation exercise of the current scholarship programmes this year, with the development of a national scholarships policy underway.
Said the minister, “The assessment was evaluating the extent to which the scholarship schemes respond to the needs of the country in terms of closing the skills gap and providing critical skills required for the achievement of Vision 2030.”
These milestones came about after the ministry conducted 39 multi-stakeholder consultative meetings with parastatals, the private sector, professional associations and the academia, among other stakeholders.
