What Jobs Do The Youth of Garissa Want?

Development entails a progressive improvement of the social, economical and political aspects of a certain polity or society. Under social development; the leaders of the polity must ensure that there is cohesion between all members of the polity, under economical progress; this generally refers to the sustained, concerned actions of policy makers and community that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area and political development and political development entails the development of the institutions, attitudes, and values that form the political power system of a society.
Perhaps the most pressing matter in our the county is the economical underdevelopment of many of Garissa’s youth, that form almost 80% of the county’s entire populace.
To solve the problem of economical underdevelopment, the county government must introduce economical solutions such availing more jobs, increasing foreign and domestic investments etc.
However, the finance minister of our county, Mr. Idriss has stated to us that availing jobs is not the problem, the problem, according to him is ‘whether Garissa’s youth will want to do the jobs the government has availed for them?”. Similarly, we have heard such similar stances by many of the Garissa’s elite tribal elders, stating that all the youth want is capital to start off businesses, that is the reason why most of them are joining youth groups.

The Garissa Township Aden Barre Duale, has stated that last year in many occasions he had encouraged his constituency’s youth class to enroll in the Garissa’s Teacher’s College but to no avail. He says most of them want ‘white-collar jobs’ and in a documentary he dampens the spirits of many of Garissa’s youth who want to have white collar jobs by saying ‘the era of the white collar jobs’ for Garissa’s youth ‘is over.’
Garissa reporter had asked many of our youth why is it that they do not want to enroll into Garissa’s Teacher’s College, the answer is common and the same across the nation; ‘Once I graduate, the salary for teachers is not high enough!‘. The low salaries given to teachers working in public schools, which form the majority of schools in Garissa county, is the reason why many of the teachers had gone on a public strike last month. The public strike which was also held by the few number of teachers in Garissa, badly affected the already underdeveloped education-sector of our county.

According to USAid latest report on Garissa, only 43.9% of the county’s youth population (i.e. between the ages of 15 to 18) attend school. According to Sheikh Omar, a professor at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences in the University of Nairobi, the main reason behind such a low educational outcome is accessibility to the schools and the insufficient number of teachers in our county. Therefore, it is perceptible that the county government should prioritize educational development. And to do this, Mr. Idriss must importune Garissa’s youth to become teachers by increasing teacher’s salaries – giving employment to the youth and improving education rates in our county.
Furthermore, the county government must construct and open up meat, camel milk, tomato factories across our county – which is almost the size of Denmark. In this factories, many of the youth that have graduated from high school but are not affluent enough to join universities or colleges, may work in the production lines. This will provide employment and will improve the synthetic economical situation in our county.
In an interview with vice-governor Mr. Abdullahi about the economical situation in our county, he stated this; “Garissa County is the third largest county in Kenya. It is unique in its own way and for it to develop the people that call themselves ‘Garissans’ must bear the burden of improving it together with the county government. They must work in the building of roads and the construction of buildings and not devolve these jobs to people that come from other counties. They must know that the onus is on the Garissans themselves to materially develop the county and not rely on outsiders.”