As part of a broader economic diversification policy, new investments in vocational and professional training are expected to help the Gabonese government bridge the gap between the offerings of educational institutions and the needs of the job market.
Two initiatives were announced at the second annual New York Forum Africa, held this year in mid-June in Libreville. First, the Ministry of Education signed a partnership with the China Aviation Industry Corporation International (AVIC) that provides for the construction of three general vocational schools in the next three years. The centres will be located in Libreville, Franceville and Port-Gentil and each is expected to offer training in up to 10 different industries.
In order to have a maximum impact on employment levels, the schools will be open to candidates with at least a primary school completion certificate, the Brevet d??tudes du Premier Cycle (BEPC), and will offer both professional reconversion and continuing education programmes. Each centre is expected to have capacity for 600 students. Financing is slated to come from China?s Exim Bank, for an estimated investment of $34m per school.
At the same conference, President Ali Bongo Ondimba announced the $200m ?Train My Generation? fund, which will be financed in part by the Economic Community of Central African States (Communaut? ?conomique et Mon?taire de l?Afrique Centrale, CEMAC). Member states are expected to contribute $50m, with the balance to come from the private sector, both in Africa and internationally.
The fund will finance the establishment of 50 professional and technical schools in the region, which will train around 100,000 students within 24 months, according to programme organisers. These institutions will focus on preparing students for employment in the tourism, agriculture, and retail sectors, which were selected on the basis of their potential for entrepreneurship and job creation. Training opportunities in these fields are limited, despite the Gabonese government?s focus on increasing value-added activity in the agriculture and tourism sectors.
In the tourism sector, there is a need for more trained professionals at all levels, a fact that was made apparent in the run-up to the January 2012 African Cup of Nations (Coupe d?Afrique des Nations, CAN) football tournament, which Gabon co-hosted with Equatorial Guinea. A number of hotels sprang up around the capital during this period, boosting demand for qualified staff who can be hard to find.
Today, many of the larger hotels pursue their own professional development programmes. In addition, several private schools have begun offering professional training certificates in the tourism sector. The Universit? Continental de Libreville, for example, offers joint study-internship programmes in partnership with local hotels to provide on-the-job training opportunities.
Gabon has made moves in the last three years to establish professional schools in a number of other sectors, including hydrocarbons, mining and forestry, to meet the demands of the shifting job market. Plans were announced in 2012 to create a Technical Institute in Owendo, which will focus on wood processing technologies. Work has begun on a School of Mines and Metallurgy in Moanda, a key manganese mining area in the interior. The school is slated for completion in 2015 and will offer technician training as well as professional bachelors and masters degrees. The mining firm Comilog-Eramet is a partner in the project, and technical support will be contributed by a consortium of French universities, including the Paris School of Mines.
In addition, an Oil and Gas Institute (Institut du P?trol et du Gaz, IPG) was inaugurated in 2010 in Port-Gentil, the centre of the petroleum industry. The IPG was created through a public-private partnership with several oil companies, including Total, Shell, Addax Petroleum, Eni and Perenco, and will train petroleum technicians and engineers when it fully opens in 2013.
The African Development Bank estimates that 8% of Gabonese students are currently enrolled in technical and vocational programmes, but the state aims to push this to 20% of all students by 2020. Meeting this goal will likely require the cooperation of the private sector, which will provide financial support as well as help identify current and future needs of the economy, and even provide combined work-study programmes that will help to better align training with the domestic labour market.
