Skill Acquisition should be made compulsory in Varsities Says University Don.
A University lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department of The Polytechnic Ibadan, Dr. K.A Yusuf has described higher education as the spine of every society, and quality education determines the quality of human resources and development of any country.
Furthermore, he added that manpower outsourcing is unavoidable in any society that requires rapid growth and development, hence educational training should be based on societal need.
Dr. Yusuf made this known while delivering a speech at the 13th inaugural lecture of The Polytechnic Ibadan themed, “Graduate Unemployment Crisis in Nigeria: Vocational Training and Agro-Technopreneurship as Strategic Bail Out“.
According to him, “many candidates seeking admission every year are made to study courses that are not marketable out of frustration of not meeting up with the cut-off marks set by Institutions.
Furthermore, he said higher education system in Nigeria should not only prepare graduates for research and teaching, but rather provide highly specialized skill training courses that could help adapt to the needs of economic and social life and as well as promote international co-operation through internalization of research, technology, networking and free movement of people and ideas.
He complained about the alarming increase in the rate of Unemployment and how it has taken its toll on the socio- economic fabric of the country and as most of the criminal activities happening in the country is as result of joblessness, among the young graduates.
He further suggested that Nigerian graduates be introduced to entrepreneurship training programmes during their time in school. He also advised that a vocational training at an undergraduate level is essential for students to acquire skill in any trade of their interest as passion is a welcome development in the right direction.
In his words: “This mandatory programme will create employment opportunity for the unemployed due to the acquired skill, while the transaction of the vocational training programme into techno-preneurship programme will generate additional job opportunities for teaming unemployed young graduates.”
He also called on the government to develop the agricultural based industries in rural areas so that the rural candidates don’t migrate from rural areas to urban areas, this way more employment opportunities will be generated in rural areas for the seasonally unemployed people.
Lastly Government should also allow more foreign companies to open their units in the areas where we don’t have the technological knowhow, so that more employment opportunities could be generated.”
