Aside from a radical tinkering with the curriculum, job training and re-training should make Nigerian youths more employable
Youth unemployment statistics just supplied by the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) is sobering, if not altogether surprising. But it points to the paramountcy of work training and re-training in any modern economy.
Speaking at the second national skills summit in Abuja on July 14, ITF Director-General Joseph Ari gave the number of unemployed Nigerians as 122,049,400 — quoting figures from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Q4 2020 Report on Labour Force Statistics, Unemployment and Underemployment. Further breakdown of the stats show 69,675,468 have sundry qualifications and are willing to work. But only 46,488,079 were engaged, leaving over 23million Nigerians out of jobs.
The general reason, of course, is that the economy is not expanding enough to take in the rising number of applicants that yearly leave our tertiary institutions — and these figures were even as at 2020. Figures for 2021 and second quarter 2022 would have risen.
What is worse is that vacancies could well exist, particularly at the premium end of the job market that needs specialized skills; even at the medium and low ends that need precision skills. But at all three levels, Nigerians are often found skill-deficient, so much so that many tertiary graduates are dubbed “unemployable” and the available jobs farmed out to expatriates.
This rather parlous situation, explained the ITF D-G, has sent his agency conducting “a skills gap assessment in six priority sectors of the national economy” in concert with the United Nations Development Organization (UNIDO). The survey was aimed at correcting the misnomer that makes businesses to invite foreigners to fill vacancies that yet exist in several sectors of a tight economy — a step which leaves many Nigerian youths empty-handed because of lack of requisite skills. To bridge this gap, the ITF has put in place a national industrial skills training for youths, women and the physically challenged, aside from sundry other empowerment programmes. This is to raise the skills set of Nigerian youths, in different sectors of the economy. But these programmes are making little or no impact, given the seriousness of the challenge.
The ITF has its head in the right place by its stress on job training and re-training, aside apprenticeship training for pre- and post-tertiary graduates. That is the ultimate direction to follow and deepen. Yet, where to start is a radical overhaul of the curriculum right from primary school. Though not every child would turn out to be entrepreneurs, a shift must be made from education for white-collar jobs, to education to create value and jobs. True, some progress may have been made along that line, but the progress appears too little. It’s time, therefore, to push full-throttle in that direction.
That way, and with every segment of the system well-synched — primary, secondary and tertiary — tertiary graduates would have been well oiled for the jobs available; aside from lower non-graduate artisans being literate and well trained enough to take advantage of opportunities in the economy such as being skilled welders, plumbers, masons, mechanics, electricians, etc. But that is only at the base. A modern economy, powered by IT and sundry rapidly changing developments is always in a state of flux. In this age of globalization, the Nigerian economy can’t become a passive recipient of foreign-trained hands.
That is why on-the-job training and re-training must be a vibrant part of the budget of any serious business that sets up shop in Nigeria. This is routine in most other countries, particularly giant corporates of the West and even in China, Japan, Korea and India. If it takes a Nigerian policy to make that compulsory for every business in Nigeria — foreign or local — so be it.
If job vacancies are available in Nigeria, Nigerian youths should be well-trained to fairly compete for these jobs. That is no economic nationalism. Rather, it is fair competition under globalization. That is routine in every vibrant economy all over the world and Nigeria can’t be different.