FG: Africa must prioritise skill acquisition to improve graduate employability

The federal government says African countries must prioritise skill acquisition and entrepreneurship to improve graduate employability in the continent. 

Andrew David Adejo, permanent secretary at the federal ministry of education, said this while declaring the 2023 international summer school and conference open in Abuja on Monday.

Adejo attributed the rising unemployment in the continent to “missing link between African universities and the industry”.

The permanent secretary said the theme of the conference — ‘Cultivating New Frontiers in Employability Research for Skills and Career Enhancement’ — is imperative to change the narrative in Africa.

“In view of the increasing number of tertiary institutions in Africa, particularly universities, and the huge number of graduates produced annually and are thrown into the unemployment market because of a missing link between African universities and the industry, issues of unemployment and the employability of African graduates will always remain very important,” he said.

“It is, therefore, incumbent on us, as Africans, to devise and implement strategies to ensure that we train persons that are not only fit for the labour market but would also find job placements.”

Adejo said the NUC and other stakeholders have consistently advanced graduate employability through curriculum reengineering exercises.

He, however, said a lot of work is still required considering the dynamic nature of the contemporary labour market and the future of work.

The permanent secretary assured the audience of the President Bola Tinubu-led administration’s commitment to promote graduate employability among African graduates.

“As we internalise a Renewed Hope for our great country, I wish to assure this worthy gathering of the continuous support of the Federal Ministry of Education and indeed the Federal Government of Nigeria to ACCESS and its partners, in their commitment to the promotion of African graduate employability through skills acquisition and entrepreneurship,” he added.

In his remark, Chris Maiyaki, NUC’s acting executive secretary, said the conference is “consistent with the commission’s on-going efforts at changing the Nigerian narrative on the dissonance between skills and employment potentials”.

“As we stand at the threshold of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we must empower our graduates to optimally exploit the novel technologies and transformative shifts in the job market, as well as embark, collectively, on a journey of exploration, research, and innovation, to equip African graduates with the skills required for the future workforce,” he said.

“The 2023 International Summer School and Conference of the African Centre for Career Enhancement and Skills Support (ACCESS) is intended to provide an avenue to share best practices, glean successful case studies, and evidence-based insights that will enable us to chart the most effective pathways to promote the employability and career trajectory of our graduates.”

The conference, organised by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Africa Centre for Career Enhancement and Skills Support (ACCESS), is scheduled to hold from July 31 to August 4