Welcome To The Real World!

| Monday October 15, 2007 00:00

As the excitement will fill the UB Stadium, it is imperative for them to start thinking about what's next. As parents will be celebrating, one thing they don't realise is that that might just be the beginning of pain as they might need to share their pensions with the graduates because there will be no more allowances. I can assure you that not half of those graduates will have found suitable jobs by 2010. The fact of the matter is we end up settling for any job we come across simply because you have no choice. A Computer Science graduate being a computer technician - waste of talent and skill. At times we feel like we pursued wrong courses. When you realise that Civil Engineers are getting jobs you think why did I do HR, but that suddenly changes as IT takes its course and we have everybody mimicking IT... The society is now polluted with IT professionals sitting at home and that goes for every other course. Previously teaching was very exciting as you would not even stay a day at home after your graduation but what's happening now?

Have your Bachelors' degree and be a temporary teacher at a primary school in Mmashoro.

Finding a job is one of the most tiring, most trying excises you can ever come across. You know you have what it takes, you know you have the qualification and you keep asking yourself - but why am I not being called for an interview. When you get a call for an interview you have hope, only to find 500 of you interviewed for two available positions - even a clinical psychologist will lose hope in such circumstances. But it is reality, we need bold faces to face it. The question is what is the way forward?

Government alone can never do enough. What is the private sector doing? It won't be a miracle soon when a graduate in Economics becomes a herd boy or a maid - that's definitely where we are heading. You see all these Zimbabweans and Nigerians with Bachelor of Laws fixing cars on the street, it's our turn now.

Often we talk about starting our own businesses, how easy is that? You need capital to make money. You don't just wake up and say I am starting an IT company. The government initiatives are not bearing any fruits either. Either because the way they are being administered is poor or that after getting the finance we rush to the nearest motor dealer and blow the funds. This has affected us tremendously.

I was rather flattered by the speech made at the recent prize giving ceremony where the guest speaker said students must start to think of employment outside Botswana and therefore they must make themselves employable. This is the message that should have been said even at university.

Forty-one years into independence and when we look back there are quite a few things you can smile about. The economy has grown tremendously but what has an ordinary Motswana gained out of that. We are the biggest diamond producers around the globe but who is benefiting out of this?

Kagelelo Dibanka Kentse
Johannesburg, SA