Employers Consultative Association of Malawi on Thursday held an explorative interface meeting with employers in industries and the academia at Grand Palace Hotel in Mzuzu.
The meeting was organized with support from Strengthening Higher Education Access in Malawi Activity SHEAMA and Arizona State University to enhance young people are employment ready when they coming to the industry.
Speaking to reporters, Orphan Mapopa Chirwa who is Executive Council Member for ECAM said they want to assist in achieving Malawi’s 2063 goals.
“We are here as Employers Consultative Association of Malawi where we brought in stakeholders, employers together, the reason is that we would want to talk about how we can deal with issues of skills mismatch and also trying to see how best we can plan as a country in terms of reducing the gaps that are there in the industry.
“We are talking about these things because we would want to map the way forward so that we can be in line with Malawi 2063 vision,” said Chirwa.
He added that all people that employ others are supposed to belong to ECAM and there are also stakeholders like Strengthening Higher Education Access in Malawi Activity who supported the initiative, ensure to narrow the gap that is existing between the training institutions and the industries on the other hand.
SHEAMA Executive member and workforce development specialist Emmanuel Nkhukuzalila Magomelo said those who have gone through the university system or higher education system are coming out with skills that will enhance employability.
“SHEAMA is an activity funded by USAID and being implemented by Arizona State University, what we would want to achieve at the end of the day is to enhance access to higher education and by the end of the day we would also want to ensure that those who have gone through the university system or high education system they are coming out with skills that will be enhance employability from the two angles which is self-employment as well as employed by others.
“So we have participation from universities and industries we also have participation from Government. We would to try understand as to how best can our universities ensure that they have got sustainable systematic and scalable programming to ensure that the moment the university are developing curriculum has to be 100 percent done in consultation with the industry to ensure that there is responding to the needs of industry, it is not abstract and by the end of the day it contribute to the achievement of national development goal for both long and short term,” said Magomelo.
One of the participants at the meeting was Patricia Mtungila, founder of Purple Innovation for Women and Girls, who said the meeting will help young people to be readily employed when coming to the industries.
“At this meeting we are basically discussing how we can ensure that young people are employment ready when they coming to the industry, so we are looking at gaps that can help them to gain skills that they need to deliver in the work place, so we want to support young people at the same time we want to deliver as organization,” said Mtungila.
Among participants were Members from Mzuzu University, University of Livingstonia, Raiply Malawi, Mzuzu Daily, Government representative, among others.
The Employers Consultative Association of Malawi (ECAM) was registered in 1963 under the Trustees Incorporation Act of Malawi as an employers’ trade association representing all subscribing employers.
They have direct membership from 250 organizations, which includes 6 associations.
The associations represent over 277,000 members. The primary role of ECAM is the promotion, guidance and protection of employers’ interests in labour, employment and socio-economic issues.
ECAM has evolved from being a sectoral organization to a diverse membership based. Currently, membership is open to all undertakings, private or parastatals and current membership is comprised of diverse sectors.
