The world has been so overwhelmed with the desperation of unemployment that workforce retraining has become the gospel in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The trauma spread so fast that even isolated islands could not escape it. For underdeveloped countries suffering from massive structural unemployment, the event exposed systemic vulnerability.

The Ethiopian reality was not so different, although the EPRDFites refused to accept this. With labour market distortion remaining a major economic glitch even after years of robust economic growth, vulnerability expanded swiftly. Insecurity prevailed, even though its magnitude differed between sectors and the professional cross-section.

As long as the unemployment problem remains structural, so should be the solution, argued the Revolutionary Democrats. To this end, they revitalised Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) albeit with a new approach. Yet, the three-year average performance of a 25pc pass rate in occupational assessment and certification exams reveals that TVET is far from being the rescuer.

Poor systemic integration and a top down certification approach challenge sectoral performance, argued analysts.

Progressive integration is an acclaimed global experience and Ethiopia’s case is no different, claimed the EPRDFites.

The politicisation of TVET provision is a major predicament, especially at a local level, contended the political opposition.

As the debate continues, the nine-month report of the Addis Abeba City Administration’s Occupational Assessment and Certification Center that was announced in April 2011, revealed that only a shocking 13pc of students who applied were certified.

Whereas 16.8pc of level-C and 46pc of level-B TVET teachers are accredited, the overall three-year average performance witnessed a fail rate of 75pc.

While the sector was envisioned to be the foundation of industrial takeoff, as stated in the National TVET Strategy that was adopted in 2008, a rising number of loafers would indisputably put the plan on ice. While the official unemployment rate stands at 26pc, with 46pc of the workforce in the informal sector, the certification relapse would burden the economy with even more disguised labour.

By contrast, global experiences in vocational training show the success rate can be pushed far higher.

Over 51pc of all young people in Germany under the age of 22 had undergone vocational training by 2008. In South Korea, the vocational education success rate stood at 67pc in 2010, even if only five per cent of students were enrolled in polytechnic schools. With 60pc of the vocational training context defined by the industry, the success rate of TVET certification in Australia was 73pc, in 2010.

The Revolutionary Democrats have a globally acknowledged reputation for providing access to TVET training. The number of trainees has increased fivefold between 2005 and 2010, reaching over 700,000, according to the GTP. The number of public TVET facilities in the country also witnessed a significant leap from 17 in 1997 to 253 in 2010. Female participation also increased to 50pc in 2010 from 48.2pc in 2003.

Regardless of the structural similarities with Norway, Finland, and Sweden, the Ethiopian TVET system does not seem to drive industrialisation, as was envisaged. Benchmarking best experiences from the Philippines and Australia did not even improve the success rate. Instead, the sector remained theory driven, unresponsive to labour market needs, and less integrated with industrial sectors while also offering low quality education.

Compounded by the structural distortion in the labour market, the system has aggravated the skill and geographic mismatch. It would also annually add 0.06pc to the existing official unemployment rate, estimates showed. This would burden the economy by pushing the dependency rate upwards.

The EPRDFites seem to accept that problems exist. As a way out, they have made ambitious plans to raise the number of employable TVET graduates to 90pc in 2015. The number of certified graduates would also increase to 60pc, according to their plan. Yet, the plan fails to state the baseline upon which progress is to be established.

In linking the sector with industrialisation, the plan envisages that TVET would establish a strong foundation for employment generation, import substitution, and improved foreign exchange earnings. 

Noting that implementation progress is far behind the planned targets, the road ahead is uncertain. So long as TVET education is costly, with national expenditure on it standing at 4.6 billion Br in 2005 (8.6pc of the overall education expenditure), every dime should have been linked to concrete results defined by both quality and quantity.

The institutional structure of the TVET sector lacks integration and a feedback system. The decentralisation of the system has resulted in a lack of integration between authorities at the federal, regional, and local levels. With the result of the professional assessment and certification process not being used for curriculum development, each goes their separate ways.

Complemented by a lack of market assessment capacity at a local level, partial autonomy resulted in ineptitude, both on individual and institutional levels.

The absence of a performance based incentive structure, in which teachers and institutions are offered incentives in proportion to student certification rate, has bred inefficiency. Frequent changes in curriculum also contributed to the mounting competence certification failure rate.

Meanwhile, the long list of problems the sector faces should not push the focus away from essential solutions. The sector should respond to local labour market requirements and progressive decentralisation to lead to ultimate autonomy. Building local level research capacity could be the entry point.

So long as TVET decentralisation remains the envisioned delivery scheme, creating an integrated feedback loop is essential. Assessment and certification outcomes should be used as inputs of curriculum design. Similarly, the certification system should be customised to a realistic training situation.

To catch up with the changing world, the whole training and certification process should be automated. In doing so, linking the process with the industrial, technological, and Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) sectors is imperative. TVET institutions should not only send students to industries for apprenticeships, but industries should approach the institutions for customised technological and business solutions.

By way of expanding access, the approach should focus on inclusiveness as it would open the window of opportunity for marginalised groups, such as rural people, school dropouts, women, and unemployed youth. Yet, quality should not be dispensed of for the sake of expanding access.

Above all, creating an innovative market based incentive structure should be the way forward. One such a system could be venture financing.

With the establishment of a customised venture financing policy, investment attraction for TVET technologies and business solutions would be painless along with technology adoption, transfer, expansion and scaling up. Systemic sustainability could also be guaranteed.

Provided that reforming the system would demand flexible policymaking and relentless political will, the EPRDFites should play the card cleverly. In one way or another, systemic change would entail political give and take, and the same is true of reforming TVET.