Youth Service and Entrepreneurship Apprenticeship Program Y-SEAP
Background
Education and employment have been in congruence in Lesotho for a long period of time. This was due to the opening up of the economy and the expanding needs in industry where basic professional skills were of utmost importance in industry. However, we have observed that, as the nature and the structure our economy developed, and the world becoming more intertwined, services and human capital freely moving across borders; a lot of the previously competitive professional skills are becoming lesser desirable or are in abundance.
Also of important note is the growing mismatch of classroom and the work environment which makes most of the new graduates lesser familiar with the actual day to day operations in industry compared to what they have learned in classroom. Experts have often pointed out to the tortoise pace at which educational transformation is taking place hence leading to wide leap-frogging between the classroom and industry.
Nonetheless, most of the graduates do proceed with requisite skills which can be utilized immediately as they adapt to the actual work environment. It is also of importance to note that, some institutions have made huge leaps forward in integrating the classroom with the industry. But one element is also taken into consideration; the heavy investment the government of Lesotho has made in educating young people to increase national labor force. Therefore, there is a tremendous gap between economic activity and growth borne of sufficient utilization of this workforce. A good portion of the trained young people leave the country in search of employment opportunities, but without any trace to recover investment costs which were meant to contribute to the national labor force.
Venturing into entrepreneurship and establishing successful startups is also proving challenging due to a number of systemic, generational and technical issues which have a lot to do with the type of education young people in Lesotho go through.
To address some of these challenges, the Agency has developed a program which intends to craft opportunities for fresh graduates with employment placement and with a view of imparting both management and entrepreneurship skills in the sector in which young people are placed.
Mission
The Youth Service and Entrepreneurship Apprenticeship Program – Y-SEAP strives to recruit and train the best graduates and cultivate a strong, practical entrepreneurial manpower which can better transform Lesotho’s economy through sustainable industrial development. We therefore aim to place at least two hundred thousand graduates in employment positions and cultivate at least two thousand startups which has at least twenty employees at minimum by the end of the tenth year of the program.
Vision
The Y-SEAP program aims to become a national leading program in cultivating exceptionally entrepreneurial human resource and to become a reference for African youth economic development model.
Objectives
The program aims to recruit and place fresh graduates on industrial practice in public and private sector enterprises with a deliberate objective of transferring workplace knowledge, impart management knowledge and entrepreneurship skills through a rigorous industrial placement.
Therefore these are the specific objectives:
- Job creation and startup ecosystem development
- Public service knowledge transfer
- Operational and Enterprise Management knowledge transfer
- Entrepreneurship technical skills transfer
- Industry experience and career aptitude assessment
Program Schedule
Announcement will be made on the determined schedule for this program. Do stay in touch with YEDA to have crisp information about this program. Subscribe to Our Mailing List, and do check our Facebook Page and follow our Twitter account for updates.
