A number of factors could be responsible for the inability of Nigerian graduates to secure gainful employment or even maintain steady jobs, Fara Fasuyi, a management consultant has said.
According to Miss Fasuyi who heads the School of Enterprise at the prestigious Ibadan Business School, Ibadan, Oyo State, chief among the factors to blame for the growing youths unemployment is the lack of appropriate skills set on the part of the applicants as well as poor work ethics.
Besides, she said the poor curriculum in most varsities is such that is completely out of tune with the requirements of modern times, thus majority of Nigerian graduates can’t compete with their peers anywhere in the world.
“It is quite disconcerting to note that majority of our universities are out of tune with what’s happening in the rest of the world. You can imagine that some of the courses which were taught some five decades ago are still being taught with little or no innovation. Are we saying there have been no new changes in those fields? You can’t rely on jaded ideas to survive in the 21st century,” she said.
To buttress her point, the Economics graduate from Covenant University readily cites the current World University Rankings in which the only Nigerian university, University of Ibadan appeared in the 800+position, a situation, she says is rather disheartening.
The 25-year-old Ilesha-born young lady who has two masters degree from the University of Dundee as well as the University of Bradford, School of Management, amongst other qualifications, holds the view and very strongly too that there are jobs out there but only a few applicants have the potentials to capture such jobs.
“Contrary to the belief out there I can say with every sense of responsibility that there are a handful of jobs out there whether in the area of enterprise development or white-collar jobs. The missing links however is that not many graduates can meet the set criteria for such jobs.”
Thankfully, she says the Ibadan Business School, has fashioned out a programme aimed building entrepreneurs.
“As part of our Corporate Social Responsibility initiative the School of Enterprise is offering empowerment courses for over 200 graduates absolutely free. It is our own little contribution to the society. Our cardinal aims and objectives at the School of Enterprise is to start, grow and make businesses thrive. That’s our calling.”
