Employers’ Views on the Relevance of School Education in Swaziland

Abstract

Employers in Swaziland have often complained about the country’ education system in that it does not provide the required knowledge, skills and attitudes that are needed by both the public and private sector, and thus the need that it be reformed. The objectives of this study were: a) To find out what employers understand by a relevant education system, and the knowledge, skills and attitudes that they require from the school graduautes; b) To find out if schools in Swaziland do provide such relevant education, and c) If they do not, find out where the schools are failing. A research-designed questionnaire was used to collect the information from the employers. A stratified random sampling procedure was used to select the industries that were included in the sample. The results were that only 9.4% of the employers said education given was highly relevant, 65.5% said it was relevant, 21.9% said it was not relevant to their needs, and 3.1% did not know. The employers indicated that the major weaknesses of the system were that it lacked practical and technical skills and that it did not provide the students with good attitudes towards work. The major conclusion drawn from the study was that it was necessary that a forum be created where employers and educators would meet and discuss what needs to be done to make the education system more relevant to the needs of the industry.