Today’s developed nations attained their economic status by
riding the wave of industrialization that began with the Industrial Revolution
in the mid-18th century where workers moved from farms to factories.
According to conventional wisdom, the path for today’s developing nations to
grow their economies and increase per-capita-income is to follow a similar
pattern of industrialization. That’s why most economic development programs for
developing countries involve large capital projects and luring large
multinational corporations to build factories on their soil. In fact, countries
like China, South Korea, and Brazil made significant economic gains in the
second half of the 20th century by embracing industrialization.
However, in the 21st century, we are witnessing
the shrinking of manufacturing jobs across the globe. Between 2000 and 2010,
the US lost 5.6M manufacturing jobs and according to the Center for Business
and Economic Research at Ball State, 85% of
those jobs losses are due to technological change. Simply put, factories
are becoming more productive while employing fewer people, and this trend will
only continue to accelerate.
While job losses are a sobering problem for developed
nations, they present an existential crisis for developing countries that must
now reimagine their brighter futures. The appeal of cheap unskilled labor will
continue to diminish going forward. 21st century jobs require 21st
century skills. According to Dr. Laurence Shatkin, the best jobs will focus on high
tech, health care, and business efficiency. Jobs like engineers,
scientists, nurses, and analysts typically require several years of tertiary
education.
However, not enough people in developing countries are
getting a tertiary education. In Africa, there is a significant talent gap for
21st century jobs. For example, in South Africa, which has a
relatively well-developed economy compared to other African countries, only
7% of 25- to 64-year olds have completed a tertiary education compared to
50% in the US (OECD data). Big chasms in the education of a country’s workforce
do not bode well for the ability to compete in the 21st century.
To further compound this problem, the path to a university
degree is not realistic for most children growing up in developing nations
today. Extreme poverty leaves many young adults unprepared for a post-secondary
education and severely lacking the resources to fund the endeavor.
But there is good news! The rise of coding boot camps is providing
faster and more affordable ways of preparing young adults for 21st
century jobs. Firms like General Assembly, App Academy and Dev Bootcamp offer
training in software development, product management and user experience design
in as little as 12 weeks. According to job-placement firm Triplebyte,
candidates who went through coding boot camps had the
necessary skills for most junior level programming jobs. Andela is leveraging the boot camp model to
train developers in Lagos and Nairobi, paying students to learn and providing
them jobs afterwards.
Furthermore, sites like Udemy, Codecademy and Coursera offer
a wide range of online training at little to no cost. Motivated students with
access to a computer and the Internet can now learn 21st century
skills and in many cases attain certification on completion.
In the same way the advent of the cell phone allowed
developing countries to leapfrog land line technologies, coding boot camps and
online courses can provide a much needed opportunity to leapfrog traditional
tertiary education. This new approach to
educating the populace does not come a moment too soon and provides hope for
developing the talent required for a brighter future.
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