The dilemma of the Nigerian graduate

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, within the 2nd and 3rd quarter of 2016; the number of economically active people in the country increased from 106.69 million in the 2nd quarter to 108.03 million in the 3rd quarter. The labour force population in that period increased from 79.7 million in the 2nd quarter to 80.67 million in the 3rd quarter. Also during that time, unemployment rate of the average Nigerian rose from 13.3% to 13.9% which was about 11.2 million people. 11.2 million were without jobs in the country within that time frame.

Increasing unemployment rate I’m sure is part of the issues the government is working towards solving but then what are the causes of unemployment or underemployment as the case may be? Few jobs? Lazy or unwilling labour force? These and more are the common reasons people give attributing to the increase in unemployment rate. Both are quite true to a large extent but that isn’t the purpose of this write-up. What about the unemployability of the Nigerian graduate due to poor educational system? This is the purpose of this write-up.

Every year, large number of graduates are turned out by our tertiary institutions leading to severe rise in the population of the economically-active individuals, this is bearing in mind those who couldn’t afford the privilege of having a complete formal education.

Part of the reasons for rising employment rate is companies not wanting to employ graduates who do not seem ably qualified to take up available jobs. Why is this so? Our out-dated educational curriculum! It goes without much saying that when we compare the quality of our education with respect to curriculum of our schools with that of foreign schools, ours do not come close.

This places a great dilemma on the Nigerian graduate as they finish school and find themselves having to do a number of online courses, short courses, reading books just to improve themselves and make themselves employable. On the average, a Nigerian graduate taking into consideration our many strikes between school ends up graduating at and age of 22–25 years, he/she wants to get a job but find out that he somehow doesn’t meet the academic qualifications required of the job. He finds out that what he learnt in school is no longer what’s been practiced in the real world, he finds out that even though he may have come out with fine grades, most of his knowledge is highly theoretical, he is at a loss as to how to implement all he has learnt.

What does he do? He either loses hope and purses another career, forced to read new books, pay amounts of money in foreign currency (with our shaky exchange rate) all to keep up. He finds out that what is being practiced in the industry he wants to work in looks like an advanced version of what he was taught in school. But he needs a job. For most companies, especially the big ones, the multinationals, he will have to write and exam, pass an interview, he doesn’t know what to do.

This is the dilemma of a Nigerian graduate.

Because of the short time frame, the desire to get a job, he finds himself trying to complete online courses in 1 month when it will normally take 3. He finds himself having to simultaneously take 2 or more online courses just so he can have his knowledge base more recent, so he doesn’t present a poorly-qualified front when he applies for a job, so he can be able to apply for quality, mouth-watering jobs. He does this so that he can get a job and start his life early enough, as time waits for no man.

This is the dilemma of a Nigerian graduate.

These issues and more are too burdensome to think about, but what must be done?

• Revision of university curriculum is the first step. This involves all stakeholders in the educational sector, starting from the ministry of education to the National University Commision (NUC) to the lecturers and Vice Chancellors or rectors of these institutions. There’s the need for a serious assessment and discussion aimed at revising our curricula and making it at par with current trends in respective industries.
• The Nigerian student also has a role to play. He must be more hardworking, commited to improving himself. He must take advantage of his holidays, he must partake in industrial training jobs and opportunities, whether paid or free. That’s the surest way to pracficalise whatever he is learning in school and be up-to-date in his knowledge. During his spare time, he should take advantage of whatever electronic gadgets he has, he should follow news and updates in his chosen field, take up short courses related to his profession. There are numerous online apps that help link the student with good courses, examples are coursera, future learn, shaw academy and so on. These apps offer many courses both free and paid.
• Creation and monitoring of laws aimed at ensuring that all undergraduates get to have at least 2 industrial trainings within their academic years. Government should work with industries towards encouragement them to take up students to perform industrial trainings and put them through proper training. This can be incentivized to ensure cooperation.
• Development of locally-made and affordable apps for online courses where students can comfortably pay for courses in local currency, taking care of the financial burden of students having to squeeze out money to fund payments in foreign currencies.

I believe if all of these and more is implemented, this will help tackle the problem of poorly-qualified graduates not being able to get jobs and reduce the burden on the Nigerian graduate.