Redefining Employability Skills in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: A Comparative Analysis with Nyerere's Second and Third Industrial Revolutions

Abstract

The late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere is considered as one of the pioneers of the African revolution, his struggles entailed the economic change that embodied the employability transformations in order to increase production and enhance growth. However, changes in the industrial revolution as the result of technological changes resulted in the shift of employment patterns across generations from the Nyerere generation which represent the second and third industrial generation to the new fourth industrial revolution (4IR) which is characterized by high technological innovations. These innovations have led to the change in the government policies in order to equip youths especially university graduates with relevant skills to cope with the speed of 4IR. Despite the efforts undertaken by governments to address and enhance soft and technical skills development most graduates have been fearing of losing chances before these technological innovations, therefore the current study explores youth perception on the employability status in the face of 4IR in Tanzania using probit model from 100 students at Mzumbe university who were randomly sampled. The results reveal that there is a positive relationship between life/soft skills, technological/hard skills, awareness of 4IR, preparation for self-employment, and graduate’s employability in 4IR, shown by positive coefficients of 0.514, 0.337, 0.976 and 1.038 respectively. Life/soft skills, technological/hard skills, awareness of industry 4.0, and preparation for self-employment were found significant at a 5% significance level with p-values of 0.000, 0.034, 0.033, and 0.029 respectively. Simply the findings suggest that a graduate (finalist) who is aware of industry 4.0, is prepared for self-employment, and have soft/life skills and technological/hard skills. Therefore, the study recommends that higher learning institutions and government authorities governing higher learning should be investment in the soft skills among youths, and enhance entrepreneurial course that constitutes innovation and creativity components in order to enable graduates and youths be able to cope with the speed of the technological and industrial demands for employability.