African insights: TVET systems and the changing world of work - the digital transformation

Digital transformation of work and TVET: A gap for African TVET systems?

Policies about digitalization abound², at a continental and national level, in relation to the potential of digital technology to transform many policy areas including the future of work and the labour market in Africa. However, it is much harder to find information about implementation planning or results. Sub-Saharan Africa is unlike other regions in several ways, including lower levels of technology adoption. Digitalization is often referred to as a major opportunity for economic development (Choi, Dutz and Usman, 2020), and the hope is that digitalization can create jobs and lift people out of informal working relations. However, African countries face a significant digital divide due to a lack of basic infrastructure and high capital costs that hamper automation investments.

Africa is a region in which the youth labour force is growing significantly and the poverty rates of working-aged youth are falling slowly, and informality is the most prevalent form of paid work (ILO, 2020b). How digitalization will transform this demographic, labour market and economic situation is not clearly mapped but expectations are high on schools and TVET institutions to deliver a digitally transformed curricula which itself can be delivered using digital methods.

Stakeholders in the BILT Africa Scoping Survey agreed that TVET systems need to respond to changes in the world of work. However, as seen across the literature review, case studies and interviews into TVET and digitalization, there seems to be more focus on the digital delivery of TVET than on considering the new digital skills requirements for programmes and qualifications workplaces that are digitalizing, or for new occupations and types of work. There are some exceptions, such as an increasing focus on mechatronics within South African TVET colleges. There was also evidence of short courses designed to develop general digital skills.

Digital transformation of work and TVET: A gap for African TVET systems?

Digitalizing TVET delivery is believed to be an opportunity to improve the quality of education and to offer solutions to educational inequalities and restricted access by:

• Removing the requirement for trainees to be on-site for their learning which can be an obstacle for those from rural areas, women with caring responsibilities and people who must combine learning with work; and
• Tailoring quality curricula which combine the best online educational resources from across the world thereby improving courses and teaching.

However, concerns such as lack of resources, scarce digital infrastructure, as well as teachers’ weak digital skills have further demonstrated the vulnerability of TVET systems. This was clearly evidenced during the COVID-19 crisis: TVET delivery was shown to be even less resilient than general education during the pandemic when online learning was used (Langthaler and Bazafkan, 2020). In general, online education rates are low, although detailed numbers are hard to obtain.

The pandemic highlighted many challenges for trainees, with online delivery of TVET, as well as speeding up a focus on increasing digital learning (Allais and Marock, 2020). To be successful in online learning, students require digital skills (assuming that online learning is viable at a systemic level in countries in Africa). A South African study showed that many secondary and tertiary students do not know how to type and/or are not able to use their devices effectively due to a lack of skills and understanding of software and operating systems. In addition, students mentioned that they cannot conduct effective searches, nor differentiate between academic and non-academic knowledge, and cannot effectively engage with academic content (DHET, 2020). Furthermore, the problem with online learning is by no means limited to technological problems – for example, students in most poor communities lack a quiet room in which they can engage with an online session even assuming they have stable/sufficient connectivity and the necessary equipment.

For the sector as a whole, an impact study on digitalization within African TVET educational systems showed that the digitalization of the TVET sector is ongoing, but evidence in terms of quality improvements and expansion of access is limited (ILO, 2020c). A major emphasis has been on upskilling TVET teachers and trainers in digital literacy and skills. For example, in Tanzania, TVET colleges have provided continuous pedagogical and technical support and mentoring using digitally skilled colleagues and hiring outside expert consultation and training workshops (ILO, 2021). The challenge has been how to integrate digital competence into teaching and learning practice. Studies showed that teachers and trainers need both digital literacy skills development (to be able to use digital technology) while also needing support to integrate digital technology in a pedagogically effective way for their teaching and learning programmes (DHET, 2020). This is not to say that there are not good examples of how to integrate digital technology into TVET in African countries. In both Kenya and Zambia, online learning management systems have been integrated into their TVET colleges; a broadcasting channel to support and address TVET students’ learning needs has been introduced in Algeria and Mozambique; and online teacher training has been used for practitioners in Lesotho.

Are digital skills needed by African economies?

Countries such as Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria and South Africa reflect increasing reliance on digital technologies, particularly mobile cellular and the internet; high levels of digital skills such as digital literacy, web development, and mobile telephone development are reported (Choi, Dutz and Usman, 2020). But the extent to which new technologies are actually being introduced in workplaces is at best uneven. Most African countries, including those mentioned, lag in other advanced skills such as artificial intelligence, scientific computing and human-computer interaction.

The ILO (2020a) suggests that jobs in Africa may be less under threat from digitalization. They argue that there are opportunities, for example, in internet-based crowd work, in which young people tend to earn more than older workers and can be more attractive to young people compared to other work alternatives available. But they also point out that although most crowd-workers are relatively well educated, their digital skills owe little to formal education. This raises a double concern whereby fewer people on the African continent have either the formal education or sufficient access to the digital technology to develop their skills informally, thereby further exacerbating inequalities in the region.

This makes it uncertain to define what digital skills are, and will be, needed for African economies and jobs. As discussed in Article 1, skills anticipation systems for TVET are focused on employer identified skills gaps, with the implication that the focus is on occupational and sector-based digital skills needs as opposed to a broader definition of digital skills for informal digital jobs (and even less on any general digital competence to support citizenship). Furthermore, technology is changing too fast for complex qualification and curriculum systems to keep up.

Research conducted by the Mastercard Foundation argues that most digitally-related jobs (e-hailing ride hailing drivers, e-commerce agents, etc.) will require basic productive digital skills, although a small portion will require developer skills to engineer and maintain digital platforms (CENFRI, 2020). There is a strong emphasis from interviewees on entrepreneurship, particularly at the level of survival skills, but a Mozambican study (Lugg et al., 2019) points to higher level skills requirements for successful entrepreneurship in the digital space. Fox and Signé (2021) emphasize basic cognitive and socio-emotional skills remain significant, and argue that African education systems are not producing these.

The BILT Africa Scoping Study asked respondents to select the three economic sectors with the greatest need for new qualifications. 90% of stakeholders selected ‘Agriculture, forestry, and fishing’, 74% selected ‘Construction, manufacturing, mining and quarrying’, and 67% selected ‘Information and communication’. When asked whether the sectors they viewed as priority had specific digital competency requirements, they gave the answers presented in Figure 1 below.