NUBIAN: Stemming the tide of graduate unemployability

Nigerian universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and other tertiary institutions across the country churn out every year thousands of graduates in diverse professional careers for employment in the labour market. Before 1990s, Nigerian post-graduate students had employment opportunities with mouth-watering offers in both public and private sectors awaiting them before graduating from their tertiary institutions. Most of them were employable with impressive skills aside certificates from their universities and other institutions.

Today, employment opportunities awaiting post-graduate students on graduating from school is fast declining; if not non-existence again. Many will attribute this declining to the poor economy of the country today hindering creation of more job opportunities and the shutting down of many moribound public and private companies or enterprises that were hitherto creating job oportunities. Aside this, most graduates being churned out today by many tertiary institutions are graded unemployable due to inadequate training and low skills from a deteriorating Nigeria’s educational system. The increasing rate of unemployability of Nigerian graduates today has caught the attentions of many of Nigeria’s educational sector’s stakeholders to stem the tide of lots of Nigerian graduates unemployability in the labour market.

Nubian American Advanced College (NACC); a major stakeholder in the Nigeria’s educational sector expressed profound concerns over the growing rate of graduate unemployability at its recent one-day Business Leadership Roundtable conference themed: Realigning Tertiary Educational for Nigeria’s Growth and Sustainable Development. One major discourse at the roundtable was graduate unemployability with solutions proffered by some seasoned stakeholders from both Nigeria’s educational and busimess sectors as speakers at the meeting.