For many young Rwandans, graduation represents the fulfilment of a promise: study hard, earn a degree and build a better future. Students spend years attending lectures, completing assignments, sitting examinations and paying university fees. Graduation day arrives, families celebrate, photographs are taken, and the degree becomes a symbol of hope. But weeks turn into months, and months into years, without employment. Gradually, some graduates begin to lose faith in the very future they worked so hard to build. I write this from personal experience. I pursued a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, hoping to become a successful engineer. I worked hard and completed my studies with good grades, believing that my qualifications would open doors to professional opportunities. After graduation, however, the reality was different. Every company I approached seemed to require experience. I found myself asking a difficult question: how can graduates gain experience when nobody gives them their first opportunity? Eventually, I secured a job at a university in a field entirely different from the one I had studied. Although this was not the career path I had originally envisioned, I found satisfaction in working rather than remaining at home waiting for an opportunity that might never come. When I discussed this experience with my colleagues, I discovered that I was not alone. Many had encountered similar difficulties. Despite studying different disciplines and working hard to earn our qualifications, some of us had ended up working in fields unrelated to our degrees. This raises another concern: are graduates failing to find opportunities in their chosen professions because those opportunities are limited, because their skills do not match employers’ expectations, or because the transition from education to employment is not working as it should? According to the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), the 2025 Labour Force Survey recorded an unemployment rate of 14.7 per cent among young people aged 16–30 and 10.2 per cent among people with university-level education. Although these figures do not specifically measure unemployment among recent graduates, they provide important context for examining the challenges young Rwandans face when entering the labour market. The challenge is not necessarily that young people are studying the wrong subjects. Rather, we must ask whether universities are adequately preparing students for the realities of the labour market. Academic knowledge matters, but is it enough? Are students receiving sufficient practical training, internships and opportunities to apply classroom knowledge in real workplaces? When employers demand experience from entry-level candidates, where are graduates expected to acquire it if opportunities to learn on the job remain limited? Universities, employers and policymakers all have a role to play. Educational institutions should strengthen partnerships with industry, integrate practical learning into their programmes and help students understand changing labour-market demands. Employers, meanwhile, should consider providing structured internships, graduate trainee programmes and entry-level opportunities that allow young professionals to gain experience. There is also the question of job availability. Even well-trained graduates will struggle if the number of suitable jobs cannot keep pace with the number of people entering the labour market. Improving education alone cannot resolve unemployment without an economy capable of creating meaningful opportunities. Young people are often encouraged to become entrepreneurs instead of waiting for jobs. Entrepreneurship can create employment and help graduates turn their ideas into businesses. However, starting a business requires more than determination. Access to capital, mentorship, markets and business skills can determine whether an idea succeeds or fails. Entrepreneurship should be encouraged, but it should not become an excuse to overlook the wider challenges facing job seekers. Perhaps the greatest concern is not simply that graduates remain unemployed, but that some eventually abandon the professions they spent years preparing to enter. When a trained engineer cannot find an opportunity in engineering and must pursue an unrelated career, we should ask whether the country is making the best use of the skills it has invested in developing. A degree should not be viewed as an automatic guarantee of employment. Nevertheless, earning one should be part of a meaningful pathway towards productive work, professional growth and economic independence. Rwanda’s young people need more than encouragement to study hard and dream big. They need an education system connected to the world of work, employers willing to nurture emerging talent, and an economy that creates opportunities for qualified people to contribute. The question, therefore, is not whether young Rwandans should continue pursuing education. It is whether we are building a bridge between the classroom and the workplace. Behind every unemployed graduate is a story of effort, sacrifice and expectations. There are families who saved to pay tuition, students who studied late into the night, and young people who imagined a future in which their knowledge would make a difference. Their degrees should not become reminders of dreams postponed indefinitely. Rwanda’s future depends not only on how many young people graduate, but also on how effectively their knowledge and abilities contribute to society. The responsibility is shared: graduates must keep learning, universities must prepare them for real opportunities, employers must open pathways for new talent, and policymakers must support job creation. A graduation ceremony should mark the beginning of possibility, not the beginning of years spent asking, “What was all my education for?”
