Kenyan youth get expanded job market

Ryan Kwach, a third-year computer science student at the University of Nairobi, will be graduating next year. The Nairobi Innovation Week organized by his university's career office in conjunction with the Confucius Institute could not have come at a better time.

The three-day event last week brought together 24 Chinese companies and 21 local establishments to interact with both college and high school students on acquiring the necessary skills for today's job market.

"I am glad that this year, there are more companies exhibiting and recruiting at the career fair because this gives us a wider variety of careers to choose from," Kwach said. "Many of the companies represented here today are offering jobs in sales, marketing and engineering. However, I am disappointed that there are not many software engineering companies and we need to have more of those."

Wang Shangxue, director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Nairobi, said more Chinese companies participated in the recruitment fair because it allowed them to select the best Kenyan students and they were able to advise students on which courses and skills are competitive in today's job market.

Arthur Omolo, a high school student from Reverend Muhoro Secondary School, said attending the career fair has given him a good idea on what subjects he needs to work harder at in order to land a competitive area of study when he enters university.

Omolo is interested in a telecommunications career and said he will pay more attention to the sciences since most of the Chinese companies at the fair place a lot of significance on technology studies.

Kwach said that with more Chinese companies coming to the fair, students will get to learn which skill sets they require and this enables them to make the right choices while studying.

Added advantage

"I have noticed that Kenyans who speak the Chinese language have an added advantage, especially with the rising number of Chinese companies opening businesses in Kenya. For instance, I have spoken to a company that needs Kenyan lawyers who speak Chinese and this means that a law student who takes the extra step to learn Chinese will have an upper hand with them," said Kwach, who will soon be searching for jobs.

During a panel discussion at the career fair, Mathew Kiptoo, a recruitment specialist with Huawei Technologies, urged the students to be open minded in a world where technology is always developing.

"In Kenya, our company has a management trainee program where we take in fresh graduates, train them and offer them internships and job opportunities," Kiptoo said. "We encourage graduates to be ready to learn new technologies, languages and systems in this fast-paced world. This is why the graduates who gain employment at Huawei still have to go through rigorous training to attain certain levels of certification."

Speaking at the fair, Ezekiel Machogu, Kenya's education cabinet secretary, said universities should work closely with government ministries and industry players like Chinese companies.

"We look forward to the universities working with government ministries, industry and practitioners to commercialize these innovations into valuable products and services," Machogu said.

He also said that as learning institutions expose students to various employment opportunities, they are also expected to champion income generation through patents and knowledge-based enterprises.