Editor's note: This article is an original work of the editorial department of the Great Diplomacy Youth Think Tank (GDYT) "Zhiben Qingxi", please indicate the source (WeChat public account "Kuzhijiao Waida"), the source (the editorial department of the Great Diplomacy Youth Think Tank "Zhiben Qingxi"), the date (the first date of this article), the title, the author (author and review) and other information, otherwise it will be regarded as infringement and will be investigated for legal responsibility.
Wang Zhihan, Intern Commentator of "Zhiben Youth Analysis", studying at the School of Public Administration, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China;
Zhang Ruidi, intern commentator of "Zhiben Qingyi", studied at the School of Political Science and Public Administration, Shandong University;
Zhou Diyan, Assistant Researcher of GDYT, Executive Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Editorial Department of Zhiben Qingyi;
Wu Xiang is a researcher at the Great Diplomacy Think Tank (GDYT) and the executive editor-in-chief of the editorial department of Zhiben Qingyi.
On July 24, 2023, the 8th Africa Tech Challenge (ATC) was held in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. It is worth mentioning that the competition was jointly organized by China Aviation Technology International Holdings Co., Ltd., the Ministry of Education of Kenya and the China Education Association for International Exchange, with 83 teams and 332 students from 9 countries including Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire and Egypt participating. The challenge has set up two professional competitions, CNC car competition and mechanical engineering drawing and computer-aided design competition, and compared with previous years, the competition has also added links such as vocational education forums, discussion and exchanges, and factory visits. In fact, since 2014, with the vigorous promotion of Chinese enterprises in Africa, the mechanism of the annual African Vocational Skills Challenge has been maturing, and at the same time, the competition also aims to improve the employment skills of local youth and promote regional economic and social development by holding free vocational skills training.
The formation of the Africa Skills Challenge mechanism is just a microcosm of China-Africa education cooperation. 2023 is the 10th year of the Belt and Road Initiative, under which the scope of China-Africa education cooperation has been continuously expanded, and the forms of cooperation have become richer and more diverse. At present, in the face of Africa's growing economic level, what kind of education cooperation can better match Africa's industrial development needs and talent gap? This paper will focus on the current situation of China-Africa education cooperation, the gap in Africa's talent market, and the new direction of vocational education development.
1. Two modes of China-Africa cooperation in education
In the 21st century, Africa is gradually moving towards a stage of rapid development, and its economic growth is obvious to all, and it is regarded as the continent with the most development potential. According to the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2024 released by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, Africa's economy is expected to grow by 3.5% in 2024.
(1) The performance of Africa's talent gap
Entering the stage of rapid economic development, African countries are also taking corresponding measures to consolidate the achievements of development. In recent years, the Senegalese government has achieved domestic industrial development through infrastructure construction and optimized the domestic business environment to attract foreign investment. It also aims to improve people's livelihoods and promote socio-economic development through the "Revitalization of Senegal Plan". In addition, the South African government plans to set up a climate change response fund in 2024 to invest in green energy, support the development of the local electric vehicle industry, and plan to improve the port and railway network facilities to improve the efficiency of the logistics and transportation system; Morocco, Zambia and other countries have invested heavily in renewable energy to try to reduce their dependence on traditional energy sources; Ethiopia and other countries are actively promoting smart agriculture, using climate data to scientifically plan agricultural development and promote drought-resistant and salt-tolerant crops to improve agricultural productivity. Thanks to the pull of agriculture, finance, transportation and manufacturing, the economies of major African countries are stable and improving.
The increase in the level of industrialization is conducive to the realization of sustainable economic development in Africa, and provides the indispensable conditions for increasing local employment, reducing poverty and improving people's living standards. However, the vast majority of developing countries in Africa face various challenges in the process of industrialization, one of the most important of which is the shortage of talent. The lack of skilled and technical personnel is an obstacle to Africa's industrialization process. In the field of talent training, compared with the past, the education level of people in Africa has been greatly improved, but the level of vocational education still needs to be further improved. According to UNESCO's 2021 white paper "Vocational Training Transformation in Africa" shows that the continent needs to improve the construction of vocational skills training. Matching vocational skills education, workers and market demand is an important issue for the development of vocational education in Africa.
The sluggish development of vocational education will lead to the inability of students to acquire the applied skills required by the market, exacerbating employment contradictions in the labour market across the continent. In fact, due to a lack of skills, many workers on the continent are working in industries with low demand for technology, or even in non-compliant industries. South Africa, Angola and other countries have youth unemployment rates exceeding 50% in 2023. Insufficient investment in education, lack of teachers, and inability to match market supply and demand have all hindered the development of vocational education in African countries.
The large and idle youth population is a natural trigger for socio-political instability (Photo source@Abroad House)
(2) "Brought in" higher education cooperation
In the author's view, the current China-Africa education cooperation is concentrated in the fields of higher education and vocational education, and its forms of cooperation are also very different. With the strong support of the Chinese government, more and more African young people choose to study in China, and the number of African students studying in China continues to expand. Since 2013, the number of African students studying in China has increased year by year, from 30,000 to nearly 100,000, and China has become one of the important countries for African young people to study abroad.
At present, encouraging African students to come to China for undergraduate or even higher degree education is an important form of China-Africa higher education cooperation. The majors of African students in China are mainly concentrated in the fields of agriculture, environmental chemical engineering, traditional Chinese medicine, biomedicine, language, aerospace, electronic communications, mining, education and other fields. The main purpose of China-Africa higher education cooperation is to cultivate high-end talents and achieve comprehensive economic and social development in Africa in the future.
(3) "Going out" vocational education cooperation
At present, Africa's birth rate remains high, and the top 10 countries in the world in terms of fertility in 2022 are all from Africa, which means that the proportion of children and adolescents in the total population of African countries is still increasing. For example, in 2021, Niger accounted for nearly one-half of the country's population aged 0 to 14, and similar situations occurred in more than 30 African countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Usually, the younger population is seen as a demographic dividend that can promote the country's economic development and enrich the labor supply, but it is also worth noting that the young labor force who cannot get education in developing countries and the youth group with insufficient labor literacy often leads to high local unemployment rates, thus affecting social stability. The parallel combination of excessive population growth and shortage of educational resources in Africa will restrict the effective transformation of African human resources.
Economist Carlos Oya has mentioned that in some African countries, the vast majority of enterprises need to carry out various types of pre-job training for employees, so the main contradiction in the labor market is that the workers' own skills cannot match the needs of enterprises, thus restricting the further development of enterprises. Vocational education is directly related to the skills training of workers, and the demographic dividend of African countries is both an opportunity and a challenge, and African countries should pay attention to practical vocational education in the process of developing education. Even if a large number of births can promote the economic growth demand of developing countries, the low-end labor supply will still lead to the demographic dividend becoming a demographic burden, and the development of vocational education is a way to help workers quickly master the skills of market application.
In 2018, Chinese leaders announced at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation that they would set up 10 Luban workshops in Africa to provide vocational education opportunities for African youth. Luban Workshop is initiated by the Chinese government and jointly established by the Chinese and African governments on the African continent to train African youth vocational and technical teaching bases. The main purpose of the Luban Workshop is to train high-level skilled personnel for the economic development and manufacturing of African countries. At the beginning of 2019, the first Luban workshop invested and built by the mainland in Africa, the Luban Workshop in Djibouti, was officially completed. The Djibouti Luban Workshop adopts a model that combines vocational skills training and academic certificate education. The workshop is equipped with a smart training base and advanced teaching hardware. In addition, China has also strengthened the training of African teachers, and has provided technical capacity training to local African teachers by sending a team of specialized teachers and technical experts.
At present, some vocational and technical colleges in China have also set up skills training programs for African students, but in contrast, the establishment of the Luban Workshop can save time and cost, which is not only conducive to China's funding of science and technology and vocational education development in African countries, but also conducive to deeper diplomatic and economic exchanges between China and African countries. But in addition, another model of vocational education talent training should also be paid attention to.
African apprentices learn mechanical engineering. (Source: @ Xinhuanet)
Second, the construction of non-vocational education in Chinese-funded enterprises
(1) Technology spillover effects of Chinese-funded enterprises
Previously, China-Africa education cooperation was more at the government level, and enterprises often did not form a mature training mechanism for the construction of vocational education in Africa, and the scope of training was only limited to internal employees. At present, due to the differences in the nature of operation, model, region, cultural concept, etc., the channels for cultivating local talents in Africa are also different, mainly including the following situations: First, the company has set up a training center in the local area. For example, ZTE has set up a training center in Algeria, and Huawei Technologies has established six training centers in different regions of Africa. These training centers not only train the company's talents, but also serve as internship bases for universities in the company's region. Second, the company entrusts colleges and universities to conduct technical training for the company's non-registered employees. The training of local talents in Africa by Chinese-funded enterprises can not only bring a solid talent guarantee to local enterprises, but also cultivate more technical talents for Africa and improve labor efficiency.
(2) How to give full play to the spillover effect of Chinese-funded enterprises
Spillover effect is a pervasive phenomenon that involves many fields such as economy, environment, and society. When analyzing and managing spillovers, it is necessary to comprehensively consider their positive and negative impacts, and adopt appropriate policies and measures to reduce negative spillovers, and at the same time promote the occurrence of positive spillovers, so as to achieve sustainable economic, environmental and social development.
In the case of enterprises, in fact, in the field of technology transfer, TNCs transfer advanced technology to the host country and its workers through OFDI, and this technology transfer has an external economic effect on the host country. If non-Chinese companies bring new technology and knowledge to the African manufacturing industry, and this technology can be learned and applied by African employees and other local companies, it can have a positive impact on the entire market. For Chinese-funded enterprises in Africa, transferring enterprise technology to local workers can more quickly enable workers to learn advanced technologies and promote the development of related industries.
Through the transfer of technology within enterprises and between Chinese and African enterprises, job seekers can master technology more quickly and achieve the purpose of vocational education. In contrast, this approach has the advantages of high practicality, low cost and time saving. In the future, if more young job seekers can be introduced to non-Chinese enterprises to study in factories, African youth can be encouraged to acquire skills in practice and work, and the development of local emerging enterprises in Africa can be realized, then vocational education in Africa will be integrated into more corporate colors and market demand.
CMOC's team gets along well (Photo source@Southern Weekly)
(3) The multi-dimensional significance of Chinese-funded enterprises to non-vocational education
So far, the author has illustrated the advantages of Chinese-funded enterprises in cultivating African vocational and technical talents from the aspects of labor, technical learning and training characteristics. However, if we look at the broader international level, this kind of vocational education cooperation still has advantages that cannot be underestimated. At the same time, in recent years, the international community's aid to Africa has tended to adopt the model of "teaching people to fish", for example, second-hand clothing is often transported to African countries at ultra-low prices, but such textiles are easy to crowd out the development of local manufacturing, resulting in a large number of people in industry. However, the technology spillover effect exerted by Chinese-funded enterprises can solve the development dilemma of vocational education and high-end manufacturing in Africa at the same time. Therefore, enterprises are more able to "teach people to fish" in vocational education cooperation.
III. Conclusion
Since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was proposed, China-Africa education cooperation has made rapid progress. In the face of Africa's growing economic and social development needs and high unemployment rate, African vocational education can carry out new attempts based on the existing development model, give full play to the role of enterprises in creating, applying and transferring technical knowledge, and form a normalized mechanism to benefit more people with technological spillover effects, as a useful supplement to China-Africa intergovernmental cooperation, and realize new possibilities for exploring vocational education in Africa.
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