The situation changed drastically in 1990s when the divestiture of parastatals took place.
This was due to fears among parents and the would-be students that privatization was aiming at killing the profession because under private ownership, only few and crucial employees were retained.
Also, there was mounting apathy among the first graduands because they were being employed by parastatals as materials managers, supplies officers, storekeepers and other subordinate jobs in the supplies management chain.
In early 2000s to date, not only has the number of students’ enrolment increased but also training institutions offering procurement & supplies management programs have increased tremendously.
Funny enough, the privately-owned institutions ventured into this as opposed to the traditional tendencies where only few public institutions were offering these programs.
The reasons behind the about–turn could be linked to the fact that the students realised that there were many avenues where procurement knowledge could be applied apart from being employed e.g. provision of consultancy services.
Also, private employers came to realise that professional management of procurement & supply chain maximises profitability as opposed to the traditional philosophy whereby ‘Profit = Sales – Cost of goods sold’.
Although we are positively welcoming the trend, the increase should not only be in numbers but also the quality of graduates should be a major concern bearing in mind that the labour market is beyond our borders.
A random study conducted indicates that, some procurement students/graduates in the country are not “ideal”, as it were, in that some do not even know the titles assigned to their diploma/degree programs!
It caught me by surprise when I wanted to know from a young man who was introduced to me seeking employment on which program was he taking at college. Unbelievably, his response was, ‘procure’!
I asked for the second time wanting to clear the air but he repeated it again and added the curious rider that that “procure” is a short form of Bachelor of Procurement & Supplies Management!
Instead of being angry at this particular boy, I took a wider picture wanting to know the college which admitted him to the degree program and the kind of tutors and professors who moulded him to that level: were they themselves “ideal” graduates in their respective lines of studies?
From that particular day, I started asking whoever student/graduate I met who purported to be taking or had completed procurement & supply program.
The majority were not able to tell properly the titles of their programs; they simply mentioned the word procure.
Before concluding my study I visited some Dar es Salaam colleges offering that particular program only to find that the syndrome affected many young men and women who are expected to fill the gap in the labour market by handling a very delicate business management function.
For the sake of today’s article, I would like to highlight the qualities of an ideal graduate as featured in an article by Dr. Harieth Hellar Kihampa, of the Open University Of Tanzania (OUT),for the training institutions and the expected graduates to assess themselves and make redress whenever possible.
According to that article in the (OUT) Convocation Newsletter Volume 17 of December, 2015,an ideal graduate is someone who is knowledgeable and has practical skills, a team player, someone who demonstrates attention to detail, dependable and reliable; and one with “soft skills” (associated with a person’s Emotional Intelligence Quotient -EIQ).
In the same article, it was argued that majority of graduates who leave universities today are “half-baked” and lack the “soft skills” that employers seek.
“The common complaint is that some graduates lack personal qualities and attitudes that can help them work well and make positive contributions to the organizations they work for.
Among the skills they lack are communication skills which enable individuals to get along well with colleagues listen and understand instructions, and put their point across clearly both orally and through writing”.
Through this column, the government (TCU) in particular is urged to impose stiff regulations to training institutions on designing degree programs, employment of academic staff and students admission.
If the above flaw remains uncontrolled, there could be nothing like effective public procurement under whatever piece of law.
To young professionals, do not expect to secure employment in a competitive environment if you cannot even tell properly the title of your program leave alone the basics of procurement.
Basically, such a person has no difference with someone who doesn’t know his personal name and yet he/she expects to be employed.
The author is an Authorized Procurement and Supplies Professional.
E-mail pmutabirwa@yahoo.com
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