- “As a matter of fact, skills shortage remains a serious constraint in Nigeria. A close look at the formal and informal sectors in Nigeria shows that a lot of low, medium and high skilled manpower are imported.”
The Federal Government has called on tertiary education institutions to fully inculcate skills development scheme into academic programmes to boost graduates’ employability.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Arch. Sonny Echono, who stated this at a two-day Technical Workshop on Skills Gap Assessment in Tertiary Institution in Abuja, said graduates need to remove too much emphasis on paper qualifications but develop skills that can easily fetch a job.
He said, “The employers of labour often complain that many of the graduates of tertiary institutions, though professionally or technically qualified, are unemployable because they lack the requisite, essential skills or competencies needed to compete favourably in the labour market.
“As a matter of fact, skills shortage remains a serious constraint in Nigeria. A close look at the formal and informal sectors in Nigeria shows that a lot of low, medium and high skilled manpower are imported.”
Echono said the workshop, with the theme: “Bridging the Skills Gap of Tertiary Education Graduates in Nigeria”, was in line with the present administration’s commitment to chart a new path for Nigerian graduates and make them globally competitive.
According to Echono, the Federal Government in a bid to close the skills gap earmarked N1.3 trillion for special intervention in public universities between 2013 and 2019, adding that N220 billion, out of the money had been disbursed.
“Another far-reaching progress made to close the skills gap and produce a workforce that is skilled, efficient, highly mobile, adaptable and innovative is the institutionalisation of the Nigerian Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) in 2018,” he said.
Earlier, the Director, Tertiary Education, Mr Joel Ojo, said government alone cannot correct the anomaly of skills gap in the country, and solicited the partnership of private sector and other stakeholders to address the problem.
“At the end of this workshop, an instrument will be developed and drawn to actually inquire into the prevailing needs in respect of present skills gap(s) and come up with a realistic roadmap to put an end to this challenge in the tertiary education sector and the job market,” Ojo said.
In his presentation, the keynote speaker and former Vice Chancellor of University of Ibadan, Prof. Olufemi Bamiro, harped on the need for universities to do away with resisting change, and accelerate skills development programmes in the institutions to boost graduates employment.
