Zambia, like most developing economies has placed great emphasis on developing human skills across the country in an effort to build a productive nation. The last two decades have witnessed the mushrooming of Government and Private training institutions across the country, in a public-private partnership endeavour to equip with life skills, the many thousands of Zambian youth that pour out of our High Schools each year.
Even with this effort, only about 40,000 of the over 250,000 students that graduate from Grade 12 are catered for each year in colleges and universities. The many Grade 7 and Grade 9 children that do not make the cut off point marks to move on to the next grade, are destined for the streets of our towns and cities to become unskilled workers, roadside vendors, and street kids. The future is very bleak for this lot.
It therefore comes as quite a surprise that the Ministry of Science, Technology and Vocational Training (MSTVT) through the Technical Education and Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority (TEVETA) have now embarked on a program, ostensibly aimed to improve the quality of training in the country, but will have the net effect of creating barriers and bottlenecks to the greater goal of skilling and empowering our youth country wide.
This program launched by TEVETA on 28th January, 2009 and documented in their Circular No. 2 of 2009, introduces new Registration fees, Accredition fees, Trainer Accreditation fees, Curricula Approval fees, and the associated Penalties for Non Compliance, does more harm than good for the nation. The move is exactly what the Government has been trying to eliminate in the ongoing reforms on Public Sector services.
The Ministry of Tourism is working on eliminating nuisance licensing, permits and fees in order to encourage more investment into the sector. The Patents and Company Registration Office (PACRO) went through a similar exercise to streamline its operations and make business registration a cost effective and hassle free process. The Customs Department within the Zambia Revenue Authority has done pilot programs at Chirundu Border Post to fast track imports and exports from Zambia in order to support private sector business activities, as a contribution to the wealth creation effort of the country. The key benchmarks in these initiatives have been; removal of barriers, simplification of the processes, reducing the cost of doing business, facilitating economic activity, and the provision of value added services to the public.
The TEVETA initiative does not follow the same blueprint. The Education sector, both academic and skills development, is grossly insufficiently supported and experiences insufficient investment by both the private sector and Government. A rough guesstimate is that the combination of school leavers that will not progress through the Government provided educational system beyond the Grade 7, Grade 9 and Grade 12 levels totals to about 500,000 each year.
The new TEVETA effort demands that every training institution must Register for a three year period at a cost of K5,000,000. Each course offered must be Accredited for each level at a yearly cost of K500,000 for Diploma, K400,000 for Advanced Certificate, K300,000 for Craft Certificate, K200,000 for Trade Test Certificate, and K500,000 for Short Courses. In addition, There are charges for renewable (every 3 years or annually) Accreditation of Foreign Examinations Boards, Local Examination Boards, Foreign Examination Centres, and Local Examination Centres. Each Trainer, Assessor, and Examiner is compelled to pay a yearly Accreditation fee of K100,000 to operate within the new rules. There is a list of charges and fees for Curricula Approval, Examination Registration fees, and Entry fees for every subject. These new TEVETA charges provide for punitive penalties for Non compliance which demands K10,000,000 for illegal unregistered operation, and K500,000 for Non Accredited Trainers and for the use of Non Authorised Curricula.
The first impression one has, when considering the plethora of charges, costs and fees imposed by TEVETA on the private training institutions in the country, is that of adding to the cost of doing business in the technical and vocational skills training sector. Colleges will have to increase fees to the community in order to cater for the new additional costs imposed by TEVETA. This already struggling and inadequate sector is likely to struggle much more, and there is now not much incentive for attracting new investors particularly during this period of global recession. Many colleges will have to close down, and many more youth will find themselves ejected onto the streets without options for further education and skills development. One can only guess what impact this will have on the escalation of crime in the country.
A typical example is of a college operating at the Broadway complex in Ndola. The college offers 6 courses at certificate and diploma levels, and another 5 short computer skills courses. Each course accommodates 15 students. The total number of students enrolled is 255 if all courses are fully booked. Each course is priced at K1,500,000 for the year thereby generating an annual revenue of K382,500,000. Lecturers are paid K2,000,000 per month and a complement of 11 is required whereby the same lecturer teaches both the certificate and diploma sessions. The annual payroll for lecturers is K264,000,000. Rental and other running expenses tally to about K100,000,000 and the cost of registration and accreditation with TEVETA will be around K40,000,000. The gross profit before taxation works out at K16,400,000 for the owners of the business. This works out at less than K1,400,000 per month in income! Why would any investor want to invest so much, and work so hard, to earn the salary of a Driver?
A second look at the TEVETA fees and costs, indicates that several of the charges are punitive and are not associated with any service that TEVETA may offer to the colleges. Why should TEVETA be charging colleges for examination fees and registration fees that have nothing to do with their operations? Normally, these fees are charged by the examining bodies and the colleges carrying out the examinations. How does TEVETA come into the picture? Accreditation is usually a voluntary requirement. For example, the Government may offer construction contracts to companies Accredited by the Engineering Institution of Zambia (EIZ), but there may be many companies that are not Accredited that continue doing business elsewhere in the economy. Accreditation is seldom used to forcibly compel private companies to register. The term used to compel companies to register is Regulation. And regulation must be backed up by some rationale that protects the public interest. One fails to see the relevance and significance in the TEVETA logic, unless Zambia has now decided to regulate the basic type of training and skills that we want to give to our people, as was the case in the old Socialist Communist days of the Soviet Union.
A third view of the TEVETA program indicates that the aim is to raise funding for the institution. Since TEVETA is a Public monopoly, the charges and fees prescribed can be decided at a whim and the private sector and public must comply. TEVETA is a Government institution and receives funding from the parent Ministry. In addition, TEVETA has received supplementary funding from ‘Donors’ that have supported the activities of the authority for several years now. Donor fatigue and the advent of the Global Crunch now threatens to remove the supplementary funding, and TEVETA has to look to the private sector and the public to finance its operations, or risk having to reduce its operating budget. This dilemma is not new to Government institutions that have enjoyed ‘Donor’ support but did not invest in developing value added services to its customers in an effort to wean themselves from the ‘Donors’ in later years. There is a scramble for new money and an appetite for the ‘Donor’ life style of new vehicles, foreign travel, workshops, and conferences.
India and South East Asia are rapidly developing partly due to the increasing levels of skills development in the region as a consequence of the many colleges and training institution in every community. Bangalore is India’s call centre hub and hosts dozens of English Language training centres in all shapes and sizes. Productivity and development are not hampered by bureaucracy, foreign best practices, and wishful thinking. The overriding factors are wealth creation, skills development for the job markets.
TEVETA can provide services to the public to Authenticate Government run qualifications, provide historical information on results, carry out national trend and other analysis for business decision making, and provide training statistics to the public, to name a few possible services that can be sold to the public. The idea that TEVETA can become a profit centre that is self sustainable is a myth, because all it will do as many other statutory institutions have done in the past, is to become an additional cost to doing business and a bureaucratic barrier to development in the country.
TEVETA is challenged to go back to the drawing board before it does irreparable damage to Zambia’s Human Resource development. Is TEVETA there to squeeze every drop of Kwacha from those colleges that are trying to educate Zambians? Is TEVETA helping to skill and educate our people so that they can become National Resources in the wealth creation and job creation program driven by the FNDP and Vision 2030? Is TEVETA becoming another bottleneck to economic and personal development for most Zambians? Does Zambia want to develop her citizens into thieves, beggars and killers? Let’s stop killing skills development, but vigorously promote all forms of education that will empower our people at all levels of development.
Published in The Post on 31st March, 2009
Even with this effort, only about 40,000 of the over 250,000 students that graduate from Grade 12 are catered for each year in colleges and universities. The many Grade 7 and Grade 9 children that do not make the cut off point marks to move on to the next grade, are destined for the streets of our towns and cities to become unskilled workers, roadside vendors, and street kids. The future is very bleak for this lot.
It therefore comes as quite a surprise that the Ministry of Science, Technology and Vocational Training (MSTVT) through the Technical Education and Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority (TEVETA) have now embarked on a program, ostensibly aimed to improve the quality of training in the country, but will have the net effect of creating barriers and bottlenecks to the greater goal of skilling and empowering our youth country wide.
This program launched by TEVETA on 28th January, 2009 and documented in their Circular No. 2 of 2009, introduces new Registration fees, Accredition fees, Trainer Accreditation fees, Curricula Approval fees, and the associated Penalties for Non Compliance, does more harm than good for the nation. The move is exactly what the Government has been trying to eliminate in the ongoing reforms on Public Sector services.
The Ministry of Tourism is working on eliminating nuisance licensing, permits and fees in order to encourage more investment into the sector. The Patents and Company Registration Office (PACRO) went through a similar exercise to streamline its operations and make business registration a cost effective and hassle free process. The Customs Department within the Zambia Revenue Authority has done pilot programs at Chirundu Border Post to fast track imports and exports from Zambia in order to support private sector business activities, as a contribution to the wealth creation effort of the country. The key benchmarks in these initiatives have been; removal of barriers, simplification of the processes, reducing the cost of doing business, facilitating economic activity, and the provision of value added services to the public.
The TEVETA initiative does not follow the same blueprint. The Education sector, both academic and skills development, is grossly insufficiently supported and experiences insufficient investment by both the private sector and Government. A rough guesstimate is that the combination of school leavers that will not progress through the Government provided educational system beyond the Grade 7, Grade 9 and Grade 12 levels totals to about 500,000 each year.
The new TEVETA effort demands that every training institution must Register for a three year period at a cost of K5,000,000. Each course offered must be Accredited for each level at a yearly cost of K500,000 for Diploma, K400,000 for Advanced Certificate, K300,000 for Craft Certificate, K200,000 for Trade Test Certificate, and K500,000 for Short Courses. In addition, There are charges for renewable (every 3 years or annually) Accreditation of Foreign Examinations Boards, Local Examination Boards, Foreign Examination Centres, and Local Examination Centres. Each Trainer, Assessor, and Examiner is compelled to pay a yearly Accreditation fee of K100,000 to operate within the new rules. There is a list of charges and fees for Curricula Approval, Examination Registration fees, and Entry fees for every subject. These new TEVETA charges provide for punitive penalties for Non compliance which demands K10,000,000 for illegal unregistered operation, and K500,000 for Non Accredited Trainers and for the use of Non Authorised Curricula.
The first impression one has, when considering the plethora of charges, costs and fees imposed by TEVETA on the private training institutions in the country, is that of adding to the cost of doing business in the technical and vocational skills training sector. Colleges will have to increase fees to the community in order to cater for the new additional costs imposed by TEVETA. This already struggling and inadequate sector is likely to struggle much more, and there is now not much incentive for attracting new investors particularly during this period of global recession. Many colleges will have to close down, and many more youth will find themselves ejected onto the streets without options for further education and skills development. One can only guess what impact this will have on the escalation of crime in the country.
A typical example is of a college operating at the Broadway complex in Ndola. The college offers 6 courses at certificate and diploma levels, and another 5 short computer skills courses. Each course accommodates 15 students. The total number of students enrolled is 255 if all courses are fully booked. Each course is priced at K1,500,000 for the year thereby generating an annual revenue of K382,500,000. Lecturers are paid K2,000,000 per month and a complement of 11 is required whereby the same lecturer teaches both the certificate and diploma sessions. The annual payroll for lecturers is K264,000,000. Rental and other running expenses tally to about K100,000,000 and the cost of registration and accreditation with TEVETA will be around K40,000,000. The gross profit before taxation works out at K16,400,000 for the owners of the business. This works out at less than K1,400,000 per month in income! Why would any investor want to invest so much, and work so hard, to earn the salary of a Driver?
A second look at the TEVETA fees and costs, indicates that several of the charges are punitive and are not associated with any service that TEVETA may offer to the colleges. Why should TEVETA be charging colleges for examination fees and registration fees that have nothing to do with their operations? Normally, these fees are charged by the examining bodies and the colleges carrying out the examinations. How does TEVETA come into the picture? Accreditation is usually a voluntary requirement. For example, the Government may offer construction contracts to companies Accredited by the Engineering Institution of Zambia (EIZ), but there may be many companies that are not Accredited that continue doing business elsewhere in the economy. Accreditation is seldom used to forcibly compel private companies to register. The term used to compel companies to register is Regulation. And regulation must be backed up by some rationale that protects the public interest. One fails to see the relevance and significance in the TEVETA logic, unless Zambia has now decided to regulate the basic type of training and skills that we want to give to our people, as was the case in the old Socialist Communist days of the Soviet Union.
A third view of the TEVETA program indicates that the aim is to raise funding for the institution. Since TEVETA is a Public monopoly, the charges and fees prescribed can be decided at a whim and the private sector and public must comply. TEVETA is a Government institution and receives funding from the parent Ministry. In addition, TEVETA has received supplementary funding from ‘Donors’ that have supported the activities of the authority for several years now. Donor fatigue and the advent of the Global Crunch now threatens to remove the supplementary funding, and TEVETA has to look to the private sector and the public to finance its operations, or risk having to reduce its operating budget. This dilemma is not new to Government institutions that have enjoyed ‘Donor’ support but did not invest in developing value added services to its customers in an effort to wean themselves from the ‘Donors’ in later years. There is a scramble for new money and an appetite for the ‘Donor’ life style of new vehicles, foreign travel, workshops, and conferences.
India and South East Asia are rapidly developing partly due to the increasing levels of skills development in the region as a consequence of the many colleges and training institution in every community. Bangalore is India’s call centre hub and hosts dozens of English Language training centres in all shapes and sizes. Productivity and development are not hampered by bureaucracy, foreign best practices, and wishful thinking. The overriding factors are wealth creation, skills development for the job markets.
TEVETA can provide services to the public to Authenticate Government run qualifications, provide historical information on results, carry out national trend and other analysis for business decision making, and provide training statistics to the public, to name a few possible services that can be sold to the public. The idea that TEVETA can become a profit centre that is self sustainable is a myth, because all it will do as many other statutory institutions have done in the past, is to become an additional cost to doing business and a bureaucratic barrier to development in the country.
TEVETA is challenged to go back to the drawing board before it does irreparable damage to Zambia’s Human Resource development. Is TEVETA there to squeeze every drop of Kwacha from those colleges that are trying to educate Zambians? Is TEVETA helping to skill and educate our people so that they can become National Resources in the wealth creation and job creation program driven by the FNDP and Vision 2030? Is TEVETA becoming another bottleneck to economic and personal development for most Zambians? Does Zambia want to develop her citizens into thieves, beggars and killers? Let’s stop killing skills development, but vigorously promote all forms of education that will empower our people at all levels of development.
Published in The Post on 31st March, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment