BI’s Student Success Agenda: Our Employability Roadmap for 2022
Brighter Investment (BI) has tested an investment-led model for higher education financing in Africa since 2015. But, beyond improving access to quality higher education, Brighter Investment considers itself a major dealer in hope. Through our education financing product and student support program, we have seen hundreds of high potential students in Africa gain access to quality higher education and increase their income by up to 5x.
2021: Student Employability Amidst Covid
Although student employability rates at Brighter Investment progressed at a much slower pace due to covid, our student selection cum underwriting algorithm proved its viability yet again. We saw the most number of Brighter graduates get employment this year than in any other year since inception.
Several Brighter graduates got accepted into entry-level roles in major firms in Ghana like IT Consortium, Newmont Gold Corporation, Boardroom Africa, Chirano Goldmines, MTN Ghana, and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. Likewise, more than 10 Brighter graduates received scholarships to pursue graduate programs at prestigious universities in Ghana, France, Canada, Malaysia, Ethiopia, and the United States of America.
Graduates with technology, mining, and business degrees had the most opportunities for employment in 2021. Meanwhile, students in technology, science, and agriculture had the most opportunities for further studies this year. Graduates with a degree in engineering were rated the most versatile as they possessed a greater potential to branch into different sectors and thus secure employment at a faster pace in the coming year.
Students who neither got employed nor accepted into a graduate program this year are currently preparing to take part in the maiden edition of the BI Job Shadow Program slated to commence in January 2022. It is expected that the job shadow program will help yet-to-be-employed graduates build the skills necessary to stand out in the labour market. This way, they are better positioned to gain decent employment within the first two quarters of 2022.
The year 2021 also saw some BI graduates starting businesses and testing out different business models with the help of their mentors. Some of these businesses included an all year round vegetable producing farm that currently supplies major supermarkets like Shoprite, a school in one of the farming communities in Ghana's Northern Region, and an electrical engineering company that secured a government contract to support other energy firms to rectify recent power outage issues in the country.
Planning for Increased Student Success Rates in 2022
Considering the setbacks of 2021 (not growing at the pace we initially anticipated), we opted for a more proactive approach to address student employability amid the covid-19 pandemic. Hence, we began preparing for the 2022 student success year in the third quarter of 2021.
We conducted extensive research on how Brighter Investment could bridge the gap between academia and industry amid a pandemic. Several industry professionals including hiring managers of top firms in the country were interviewed. The insights they shared were incorporated into the 2022 mentorship program which is slated to commence on January 5, 2022.
Conscious efforts were also made to drive the direct placement of students in internship positions by partnering with organizations across different industries in Ghana. A pilot of our industry learning program saw Brighter students pursuing business programs at the university undergoing an 8-week internship program with global microfinance bank, Opportunity International. Other Brighter students have also been scheduled for internship placements in 2022.
2022: Our Roadmap for Student Success
The insights provided by industry professionals on how to bridge the gap between academia and industry went a long way in shaping our 2022 student employability strategy. We are confident that by pursuing this strategy, we can reduce student unemployment rates by up to 60% in the coming year.
Ernestina (Human Resources Head, FNB)
During the interview with identified industry professionals, Ernestina Danquah (First National Bank’s Human Resources Head) highlighted the need to consciously rope industry into academia. She opined that providing opportunities for industry professionals to interact regularly with students will go a long way in bridging the gap between industry and academia. This way, industry professionals can provide students with insights into key technical and soft skills to develop and how; helping to drive relevant skills development for seamless transition into the world of work.
Based on her recommendation, the ‘BI Real Talk Series’ was birthed. The maiden edition of this virtual interaction program between BI students and industry professionals was held last Saturday and is expected to continue throughout 2022 and possibly beyond.
The need to intentionally place students in internship positions and provide them with opportunities to learn on the job was reiterated by UNDP’s Human Resources Associate, Stephen Yeboah Agyare, and Zoil’s Human Capital Head, Kwaku Owusu Opoku. While Stephen pinpointed the need for individuals aspiring to work with international development organizations like the United Nations to have some level of experience before being deemed eligible for even entry-level roles, he also explained that students can begin building their careers by opting to volunteer and/or in some of these organizations.
Kwaku on the other hand brought to fore the issue of trade secrets, especially in the production/manufacturing industry. He stated that by landing internship positions in such firms, students can grow through the ranks and build rewarding careers over time. According to him, the real-life application of theories taught at the university is important to any employer. This is why gaining experience through internships would provide students with an advantage when they join the labour market.
Speaking to Stephen (UNDP), Kwaku (Zoil), and Ernestina (FNB) extensively on how to make the internship and volunteering experience of students worthwhile provided insights that were leveraged for the creation of BI’s Graduate Job Shadow Program and the Industry-Learn Initiative. Both programs are included in our 2022 employability strategy and are scheduled to commence in January.
Justice (Vice President, World Energy Council)
Justice Ohene-Akoto, an Electrical Engineer with the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), a BI mentor, and the Vice President of the World Energy Council suggested that mentors go beyond the virtual meet-ups with students to have some form of colocated interaction at some points in the year. He opined that doing that will strengthen the mentor-mentee relationship and help both parties better communicate expectations. Based on his recommendation, the Brighter Cohort Meetup that was stopped due to covid would be reintroduced but in open spaces and at a lesser frequency. This time around, a mentor would be assigned to each mentorship cluster made up of at most five students once each quarter to share knowledge and ideas that would be beneficial to both parties in the long run.
Brighter Investment is also looking to partner with the Africa Skills Hub and the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) to drive business creation by students in 2022. We believe in fuelling the dreams of our students through the creation of opportunities for decent employment. Where BI graduates show a strong passion for entrepreneurship, we provide the needed resources and support to help them build locally viable businesses with a global outlook. In 2022, we are looking to leverage key partnerships to consolidate our student entrepreneurship program and in so doing make students employers of labour.
We also believe that in addition to entrepreneurship and other pro-employment policies, intrapreneurship could be another of Africa’s ways out of ever-rising unemployment rates. This is why we hope to give back to mentors and working BI graduates in 2022 through the BI Intrapreneurship Program.
Through this program, we hope to provide mentors and working BI graduates with the knowledge, resources, and support to drive innovation in their respective organizations. The thinking here is that when there is a rise in innovation, the possibility of organizations expanding their operations across markets increases and that this increase will result in firms wanting more labour. We are confident that the effective implementation of the BI Intrapreneurship program will help reduce student unemployment by up to 15% in the coming year.