Educators believe that they are adequately preparing youth for the labor market while at the same time employers lament the students' lack of skills. A possible source of the mismatch in perceptions is that employers and educators have different understandings of the types of skills valued in the labor market. Using economics and psychology literature to define four skills sets --socio-emotional, higher-order cognitive, basic cognitive, and technical -- this paper reviews the literature that quantitatively measures employer skill demand, as reported in a preference survey. A sample of 27 studies reveals remarkable consistency across the world in the skills demanded by employers. While employers value all skill sets, there is a greater demand for socio-emotional skills and higher-order cognitive skills than for basic cognitive or technical skills. These results are robust across region, industry, occupation, and education level. Employers perceive that the greatest skills gaps are in socio-emotional and higher-order cognitive skills. These findings suggest the need to re-conceptualize the public sector's role in preparing children for a future labor market. Namely, technical training is not equivalent to job training; instead, a broad range of skills, many of which are best taught long before labor market entry, should be included in school curricula from the earliest ages. The skills most demanded by employers—higher-order cognitive skills and socio-emotional skills—are largely learned or refined in adolescence, arguing for a general education well into secondary school until these skills are formed. Finally, the public sector can provide programming and incentives to non-school actors, namely parents and employers, to encourage them to invest in the skills development process. Skills, labor demand, cognitive, non-cognitive, behavioral skills, competences, employer surveys, skills policy, education policy, training policy.

/pdf/employer-voices-employer-demands-and-implications-for-public-136j8231dz.pdf

Employer voices, employer demands, and implications for public skills development policy connecting the labor and education sectors

Botswana is a small, landlocked, upper-middle-income country with a gross domestic product (GDP) of United States (US) 173 billion dollars in 2011 Despite high levels of economic growth over the past two decades, poverty and inequality persist in Botswana and unemployment is high The Government of Botswana (GoB) has developed and approved key strategic documents that articulate its long-term development objectives, including those in the social protection sector The purpose of this assessment is to inform Botswana's future social protection and labor strategy and policies and help to achieve the goals of vision 2016 The assessment concentrates on social assistance programs as major reforms are already taking place or being considered for active labor market programs (ALMP) and social insurance programs As social assistance programs are a significant draw on the GoB's budget and revenues from mining are projected to decline over the medium term, it will inevitably be necessary to increase the cost-effectiveness of existing programs This assessment draws on the World Bank's Africa social protection strategy for 2012-2022 which, in addition to the issues addressed by the overall World Bank social protection strategy, stresses the need to focus on the targeted delivery of social services and on issues of good governance, efficient program design and delivery, and country-driven system development To meet its objectives, the assessment is organized as follows: chapter one gives a brief discussion of the conceptual framework, chapter two discusses the principal vulnerable groups in Botswana and the risks that they face Chapter three reviews the principal policies and programs that are already in place to address the risks that have been identified as well as the existing informal social protection arrangements Chapter four assesses the adequacy of the social protection system by analyzing spending; program coverage, overlaps, and gaps; program generosity; targeting efficiency; cost-effectiveness; incentive compatibility and sustainability; monitoring and evaluation; and institutional arrangements Chapter five contains recommendations

Botswana social protection assessment

Background: Traumatic injuries pose a significant and increasing challenge to healthcare systems worldwide. One major type of traumatic injury is the traumatic orthopaedic injury, whose epidemiology is unknown in Botswana. The aim of the study, therefore, was to evaluate the age, sex, type, and determinants of traumatic orthopaedic injuries for inpatients at Princess Marina Hospital from August 2014 to January 2015.Methods: We performed a descriptive study by retrospectively collecting data on age, sex, date of admission, date of injury, date of discharge, radiological investigation, and injury types and determinants from medical records of patients admitted to orthopaedic wards.Results: The median age of patients with traumatic orthopaedic injuries was 33.5 years (n=372). Males were more frequently injured than females, with a sex ratio of 7:3. Fractures were the most common type of traumatic orthopaedic injury (413 injuries, 75.5%). The most common injury determinants were falls (145 patients/39.0%), road traffic accidents (95 patients/25.5%), and assaults (57 patients/15.3%).Conclusions: Young adult males were the group most affected by traumatic orthopaedic injuries. Fractures were the most common type of traumatic orthopaedic injuries, with falls being the most common injury determinant. These findings may guide efforts to improve healthcare delivery and public health policy.Level of evidence: Level 4

/pdf/epidemiology-of-traumatic-orthopaedic-injuries-at-princess-1rvol3yv50.pdf

Epidemiology of traumatic orthopaedic injuries at Princess Marina Hospital, Botswana

A Baseline Study on Technology-Enabled Learning in the African and Mediterranean Countries of the Commonwealth: Report

Demography affects our daily lives. Consciously or not, we take into account the demographic context when making choices on employment, savings, health, and education. This report studies how demographic change is likely to affect demand for social services in Southern Africa and how today’s policies can be shaped to reap potential benefits from demographic dynamics and address the population’s evolving needs. The authors define the social sectors as education, health, and social assistance and social policies as policies related to these three sectors. The study illustrates how social policies designed to fit with evolving demographic structures are likely to lead to wealthier and more productive future generations, fostering growth and equity. But the reverse also holds: ill-tailored social policies can hold back countries’ development and heighten intergenerational tensions. The rest of this report is structured as follows. Chapter two presents evidence on demographic trends in Southern Africa. Chapter three explains the report’s conceptual framework and how demography can be an opportunity or a curse, depending on the policy environment. Chapter four studies the five countries’ labor markets and documents challenges that a growing active labor force is likely to generate. Chapter five looks at the likely impacts of changing demographics on social sectors.

Forever young? Social policies for a changing population in Southern Africa

Botswana has pursued prudent macroeconomic policies to manage the revenue streams from diamond exports. It is now an upper-middle-income country that outperforms other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa on key indicators of socioeconomic performance including education, health, and social services. The economic structure in Botswana has undergone changes in recent years, but these changes have not yet ended the country's reliance on diamond exports. Until recently, Botswana also had a telecommunications monopoly; other utilities are not always accessible at competitive terms. Looking at the lessons offered by successful economies that have grown rapidly in a short period of time, such as those in East Asia, it is clear that export-led industrialization policies contributed to their growth. These policies involve the state taking the lead in crafting and managing market institutions, building physical infrastructure to support industrialization, and minimizing coordination failure within the various segments of the economy. A well-educated and trained population with a wide spectrum of skills also played a vital supporting role in this growth in East Asia. This population had a sufficient skills base to absorb and assimilate technology (via foreign direct investment), operate equipment and infrastructure, and create effective organizations. The country faces significant challenges in transforming its human resources into a force that can drive total factor productivity improvements and, consequently, economic growth.

Botswana - Skills for competitiveness and economic growth

Botswana has an official unemployment rate of 17.8 percent. The low labor-intensity of growth is a potential explaining factor for this high level of unemployment. It is thus essential to analyze the role of education and training in the access to employment. This note finds that the role of education has changed under the effect of schooling expansion and persistent unemployment. Labor market institutions appear to have a limited impact on employment and wage levels, while the importance of active labor market programs is growing. This note aims to identify labor market signals that point to demand for specific current and future skills. The note seeks to answer the following questions: does the labor market place a higher premium on workers literacy and numeracy skills, technical skills, or behavioral skills?; is the labor market more in need of secondary or tertiary education graduates?; and will growing economic sectors (for example, tourism) benefit more by increasing the supply of sector-specific skills (for example, through specific training for tour guides and hospitality staff) or general skills (for example, through training of lawyers and accountants who can be absorbed in any sector of the economy)?.This note analyzes the following data and documentation to identify labor market signals in the Botswana economy: government economic growth and diversification strategies; general labor market data; and enterprise and employee surveys.

Botswana - Labor market signals on demand for skills

Botswana's economic growth has hinged on its abundant natural resources, particularly diamonds, which generate nearly half of its fiscal revenues. In terms of sustainable growth, this dependency on natural resources poses the biggest challenge for the country. To prepare Botswana for life after diamonds, the government developed a growth paradigm in its vision 2016 strategy document (Presidential Task Group 1997), which suggests that the development of new economy skills will play an extremely important role in the countrys future. Botswana is aiming to develop new engines of growth, supplementing the diamond industry with manufacturing, financial, and transport services, and transforming the countrys entrepreneurship sector into a buoyant, productive, and innovative private sector led by entrepreneurs with cutting-edge skills. A key ingredient of this strategy is the development of a holistic approach to skills development. Botswana has achieved high enrollment in basic education (90 percent in primary education) and the government continues to invest a high share of gross domestic GDP, almost 8 percent, in the education sector. In 201011, expenditures on education amounted to 25 percent of total government expenditures. Nevertheless, a skills constraint is repeatedly cited as a major challenge for businesses in the country. In 2010, the Enterprise Survey for Botswana reported that of the 10 major business constraints, the majority of firms in the country reported skills shortage as the key problem (World Bank, 2010a). The country also has high unemployment rates reported at approximately 17.8 percent and approximately 27 percent, when discouraged jobseekers are included (CSO, 2011). This note reviews the current landscape of the education sector in Botswana and attempts to identify key bottlenecks in the supply of relevant skills for economic diversification. Recommendations for preparing students who can be readily integrated into the labor market are then offered, using examples of best practices from successful case studies.

Raising Botswana's human resource profile to facilitate economic diversification and growth

This note examines the skills implications of the beneficiation strategy, particularly those of diamond cutting and polishing. In addition to reviewing the governments plans to develop downstream activities and their implementation, the note offers employment projections based on the potential success of diamond beneficiation efforts. For this purpose, an input-output simulation is used to show how output linkages arising from the production of polished diamond exports will impact labor in various sectors of the economy. The analysis is based on primary data and information collected through interviews with relevant stakeholders in the diamond industry, as well as secondary data from official sources. The note suggests that in the last five years, Botswana has made considerable progress in establishing a local cutting and polishing industry, but that the success of this industry depends on the creation of concomitant skills. By 2010, the industry had already created close to 3,000 direct jobs in 16 cutting and polishing factories, in line with governmental targets. The input-output simulation shows, that the output linkages arising from the input demands associated with processing rough diamonds, valued at $550 million by the 16 aforementioned factories has the potential to create over 6,000 indirect jobs in the country. The cutting and polishing industry is still in the development phase and needs a dynamic policy environment in order to remain relevant at all stages of its development. Policies are needed in particular to: create industry-specific skills (with clear skills transfer targets, or deadlines), establish technology links between the diamond hub and the innovation sector, facilitate rough diamond trading, and expand the capacity of the Botswana Training Authority (BOTA) to accredit cutting and polishing programs within industry factories.

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2014/12/08/000333037_20141208234547/Rendered/PDF/930490WP0P11940C00Botswana0Note04wc.pdf

Skills implications of Botswana's diamond beneficiation strategy

Human development is one of the pillars of Botswanas Country Partnership Strategy with the World Bank (2009-13). The Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) is in line with Botswanas vision 2016, which, in terms of human development, envisions the transformation of Botswana to an educated and informed nation and to a prosperous, productive and innovative nation as two key cornerstones of the strategy. In line with these objectives, the World Bank with support from the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) embarked on analytical study entitled skills for economic growth and diversification in Botswana. The work is informed by Botswanas need to diversify its economy to facilitate stronger, more sustainable economic and employment growth and, concurrently, equip its workforce with a variety of skill sets that meet employer needs. This note is divided into six parts. The following section (section two) provides a profile of surveyed firms; sections three and four present the findings of employer and employee evaluations of the types of skills needed for employment. Section five presents the results of econometric analysis of the determinants of wages and wage growth for employees. The final section proposes some concrete recommendations on how to support the development of the skills valued by the private sector in Botswana.

Skills needs of the private sector in Botswana

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