Photo by orapeleng brian kgotleng
Skills development has become an integral aspect of the learning process for many nations as they seek to break ground not only in knowledge acquisition but also in innovation especially as the world moves to achieving digital and technical proficiency.
As technology continues to evolve around the world, the growing focus on specialized and digital skills becomes higher in demand, putting on notice the need for African nations to begin to appreciate the limitations of traditional education and find ways to reshape their curricula to inculcate skills development as part of its efforts to compete in a fast-changing global society.
Describing its importance as a contributory factor to emerging economies, the World Bank Group in a 2024 article highlights that “skills development is at the center of changes happening in education and labor markets amid the global megatrends, such as automation, action against climate change, the digitalization of products and services, and a shrinking labor force, which are changing the nature of work and skills demands.
Consequently, skills and workforce development systems must proactively adapt to fast transformations posed by automation, climate action, digitalization, and the evolving labor markets. These evolving trends will redefine the paradigms of education and workforce development systems globally.”
This provides a huge opportunity for the continent.
By ensuring inclusive education that takes into consideration skills development, African nations can close critical knowledge gaps and provide requisite training to the next generation, helping them meet the labor demands of the global market.
How then can this be achieved? In pointing out ways to transform Africa, Luis Benveniste and Chido Mpemba in a November 27, 2023 article titled – Transforming education and skills development in Africa, highlight that “To address these challenges, we need to transform education in Africa. This means rethinking and redesigning the education system to make it more relevant, inclusive, innovative, and responsive to the needs and aspirations of African youth.
Furthermore, they would go on to propose solutions such as Investing in teacher training and incentive programs to attract and retain qualified and motivated teachers, developing curricula that foster creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills among learners, and digitizing learning materials and expanding access to digital devices and connectivity for learners and teachers.” (World Bank Blogs)
Ultimately, this requires more funding from governments in Africa that is targeted at improving the quality of education and realigning the system to embrace new learning patterns relevant to today’s 21st century. With a budding youth population under the age of 30, allocating at least 4% of GDP and 15% of total expenditure to education according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is one step in the right direction.
Another step would be to partner with public organizations and educational institutions in reshaping educational curriculums that focus on competency-based learning in the classroom as well as also providing real-world experience through apprenticeship programs that focus on work-site learning.
Above all, much is achieved through intentional policy direction that prioritizes skills development as part of the educational processes with efforts geared at committing funds to drive the educational advancement of the continent.

Okechukwu Nzeribe works with the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, in Anambra State, Nigeria, and loves unveiling the richness of African cultures. okechukwu.onicima@gmail.com