Unemployment rates are on the rise in many parts of the world and if not tackled, it could get to alarming situations, worsening the gap between the increasing number of jobseekers and the availability of new employment opportunities. Unemployment is unwelcome as it brings hardship and object poverty to many families. Therefore, the phenomenon of joblessness, especially among graduates, creates much concern for many societies around the world, making it imperative for one to reflect on the crossroads between education and employment and perhaps what many graduates may be misconceiving in their expectations from high education.

There are many social and economic benefits to employment, and without one, life can get hard and vulnerabilities begin to set it. In some contexts, graduate job seekers have turned into crime especially cybercrime to make a living, in other contexts, graduate job seekers have turned into creating employment for themselves especially in the rural agricultural sectors. Whereas these two categories of jobseekers are theoretically lumped up together as ‘unemployed’ there is a huge difference between being openly unemployed and being disguisedly unemployed.

Paradoxically, unemployment seems to be particularly higher in graduates than other age groups qualifying it to what one can call ‘educated unemployment’.

Should graduate unemployment be correlated with levels of education?

Whereas graduating from university or college is seen as an injection of new energy through new entrants into the labour force, the declining rate of job creation and consequent contraction of employment opportunities is perhaps the rudest shock young graduates are experiencing out there. On graduation days, it is typical to hear reminders to graduands that; ‘Do not look for employment, look for work instead’ … ‘Do not be job seekers but instead job creators’. What graduates are being told, simply put, is other that shop for a frustration chasing a particular formal job in a company and/or in line with their degree certification, the approach rather should be to undertake generic activities that help them achieve their goals in life in a positive way. The ultimate goal is to be able to make a living, to make some money, save and invest in order to advance in life. Whereas this suggests serious labour market distortions alluding to the fact that the development and utilization of human resources is biased towards changing one’s economic circumstances, there are many more fulfilling benefits of self employment after high education.

Speaking directly to a graduate (and his/her parents or guardians) that have been or are currently in this reflection of education and employment, focusing more on the past- reflecting on the cost of high education that has also been sky-rocketing over the years, and wrapped in anxieties around how one gets into paying the student loan that saw then through higher education can be paralyzing and boxing ones’ mindset into a modern –day shackle of debt slavery.

The misleading fallacy

Regardless of whether or not one gets a job immediately, higher education remains absolutely necessary as its primary aim is to give the youth an opportunity for self-discovery and enlightenment, in a unique way that empowers them to be bale to solve multifaceted societal challenges in a better capacity. Placing a job as the key expectation one has on higher education is therefore a misleading fallacy. At the end of the day, the cost-effect analysis of education has been summarized by the anonymous quote "if you think education is expensive, try ignorance”. We need to forget not, that this cost also includes the opportunity cost of higher education in lieu of alternative sources of knowledge acquisition.

A change of mindset recommended.

For anyone who has been and/or is still at this cross road, I will recommend a mindset change using an example of a practical project conducted in a county in the region, but serves as a pragmatic case for most youth in the content as well.

Two young adults were used in the project example, a high school graduate who could not proceed to university die to financial constraints and a university graduate who had graduate a month before and looking for a job.

It narrates…

"Give 100USD (100,000RwF) to a secondary school dropout and watch them buy basic equipment to start a small business” ... In this case, Benson (not real name) bought a cooking stove, a frying pan, cooking oil and wheat flour to start a doughnut ‘amandazi’ frying and distribution business. In just two years, Benson will have bought a motorbike to distribute amandazi at a bigger scale, the next year, he will have married and recruited his wife into his business will will have scaled scale up to include sambuza and tea/coffee/milk and with fancy business name Ben’s place. The next year, they will buy a plot of land, build a small house and stop paying rent, and equip it with decent furniture and a TV to relax after the hard day’s work at their small business.

"Give 500USD(500,000RwF) to a university graduate and watch them buy a smartphone- the latest model in the market and several pairs of ripped or skinny jeans, take their numerous friends out for a drink each Friday, take selfies and post them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram”. In this case, Benjamin (not his real name) took this typical path and in less than three years, he will be buying sambuza and coffee on credit from Benson- the secondary school dropout and paying rent or staying in his parents' house. He will not be take selfies during his debt-taking entourage, and if he does it will be to brag to a friend that he owns Ben’s place- who would tell? He too is Ben.

These narratives point to a reality that you and I are very familiar with, and it remains wrong to frame education as an incubator for waste, arrogance and gullibility. Ideally education does not breed to any of these, but if misconceived, it has potential to make the youth look at it as a quick vehicle to wealth, and make them look down upon profitable opportunities that seem not benefitting to one’s ego and status. This is where the problem starts.

What this tells us is that there is dire need for a mindset set from young graduates if at all the education they seek will serve the purpose it is made to; steering them into a brighter future. There is need to maintain the value of high education, but at the same time change both our expectation from it as well as embrace a behavioral change in swallowing the egos and looking to the future with more optimism.

Dr. Malonza is a lecturer at the school of Architecture, University of Rwanda. An architect and urban designer with keen interest on the dialectical relations between Architecture and Society.