Zawaya

The real capital is human energy

By: Mahmoud Belhimer

If we look at the political speeches in Maghreb countries, we’d find that they are no different than what President Obama raised in his speech to the Islamic world. However, the speech alone is not enough. If it’s not accompanied by practical steps to create a suitable environment for education and innovation, it will remain a mere mirage.

When discussing the question of the existence – or lack thereof – of sufficient will to take care of this area, we should look at all the arrangements made and the means used for this sector compared to the available possibilities, without forgetting to assess the results.

At the beginning, it was not easy for Arab Maghreb countries, including Algeria, to successfully get rid of the residues of the colonial policy of spreading ignorance, as the number of university graduates at the beginning of the 60s was very limited. During the following three decades, the elaborated training system produced an elite of managers that occupied key positions in major institutions, but the level of this same system has declined today.

We should also note that the Moroccan leaders were late in understanding the real stakes of today’s world, because the real capital is not natural resources, but rather human capital. Investing in this factor will undoubtedly lead to the production of permanent wealth and well-being. The training systems have remained below the international level in the organization field, primarily with regard to scientific and technological developments taking place in the world today.

Several factors led to this situation, namely: overcrowding, lack of trainers, brain drain, a sterile and bureaucratic organizational system, in addition to the fragility of the economy and the lack of a strong relationship between economy and training institutions.

In Algeria for example, more than a million students study in more than 30 universities, with about 400,000 graduates every year, but the overcrowding compared to the reception structures and the training possibilities led to the decline of the training level. Also, new graduates have great difficulty in finding jobs in their fields of specialization.

The question that training officials in the Maghreb countries must ask constantly is: What is our contribution in scientific and technological productions and innovations in comparison with other countries of the world? And are we performing training to meet the needs of our economies in terms of labor force and trainers, or are we just wiping out the illiteracy of tremendous human resources to leave them for the unknown?!

What is urgent today is to reform the economy, because a fragile economy cannot intake new labor force, thus throwing new graduates to the hell of despair. This requires adapting training to the requirements of the labor market, as well as fastening the pace of establishing institutions and creating activities to accommodate large numbers of young people.

This will not happen if the authorities’ vision about scientific research does not change, to make of it a strategic sector in which they invest significant proportions of the gross domestic product, instead of considering it a “social policy”. Everything depends on starting free and serious discussions between all stakeholders on the most effective ways to build an effective training system.