The words of Julius Nyerere, the first leader of Tanzania (1960), are as true today as they were when he spoke them more than four decades ago, we still see that the attainment levels of basic education in much of the world remains alarmingly low. In large part, this is due to an unwillingness from some quarters to accept that the best way to address the plethora of issues that most citizens face is through proper and sustained investment in education.

For the past 20 years, the population of Zambia has been racing forward at an annual rate of almost 3%. The official figure for 2017 is 17.5 million. The 4.8 million-plus young people aged 15-35 present a substantial opportunity to transform the country by harnessing this ‘demographic human capital.’ The purpose of this paper is to explore how changing economic structure and implementing apprenticeship and entrepreneurship programmes can impact positively the development of Zambian economy and human capital.

Finding and retaining talent is an increasingly important corporate objective. Because employee turnover can be a major drain on any company’s resources, picking the right people and effective talent management will boost performance across all areas of an organisation. Devising a talent management plan that not only brings in the best people for the job but quickly and effectively acclimates them to the corporate culture becomes a must for competitiveness.