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Youth unemployment is a serious problem facing developed and developing countries since the early 2000s, and it has huge impact in socio-economic context. It was therefore important to deploy initiatives in order to overcome or reduce the consequences of this problem. Vocational training was thought to be the best option to counteract the problem. This study assessed the performance of VTCs on youth unemployment reduction in Zanzibar where four main aspects involved which were: courses offered in VTCs, students’ enrolment trend, extent to which VTCs reduced unemployment, and challenges which faced VTCs. The study used exploratory research design and involved 140 respondents to assess performance through administration of a questionnaire, interviews, focused group discussions, observation and documentary review.
The findings revealed that a total of eleven courses offered and the Majority of respondents joined in courses which depended on being employed or had low employment possibilities. Also, students’ enrolment was still very low (below 1 percent). It was found that only 28 percent of trainees had employment while 72 percent had no employment, and the main employer was hotel industries which employed 55 percent of trainees while 45 percent were self- employed. In addition, there was inadequate training materials by 74 percent and shortage of materials and equipments for field and practical sessions by 55 percent. To a large extent, performance of VTCs was affected by different challenges such as lack of areas for field practices (27 percent), and poor coordination (14 percent) which limit performance of VTCs towards well qualified and competent trainees delivery.
It therefore concluded that VTCs’ performance on youth unemployment reduction is still not satisfactory. The study therefore recommended measures to improve VTCs’ performance in employment creation such as: the Government should collaborate with the private sector, ensure accessibility of VTCs in tourism areas and review of VTCs’ curriculum to suit with the current situation of labour market. |
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