First class degrees with no job skills are useless – KWASU VC

The new Vice Chancellor of Kwara State University (KWASU), Malete, Prof. Muhammed Mustapha Akanbi, says it is pointless for universities in the country to graduate first class students who have no additional job-enabling skills.

He said this against the background of the latest report that 21.7 million Nigerians are unemployed according to a release by the National Bureau of Statistics.

“Already, we encourage our students to engage in different entrepreneurship skills, acquire, hold and consider all certificates important. It does not make any sense if you are a first-class student and you are looking for a job. And I mean first class in any programme,” he further said.

Prof. Akanbi was speaking when he led the management team of the institution on a visit to some selected government agencies in Abuja, to mobilise support for the school.

He said Kwara State University was determined to graduate students with life skills to be self-sustaining after school.

“Our university is a university of community development and entrepreneurship. We have a centre which is being rejigged and rejuvenated. It is now called the Centre for Vocational, Technical and Entrepreneurship because we don’t want to teach entrepreneurship just in theory.

“We get our students involved in vocational things and the technical aspects. You will see students engage in things like making face masks, face shields, hand sanitizers; some are into tailoring, some are into carpentry, some are into what I call mechanical automobile repair and things like that,” he said.

In the past, he said the CAC gave awards to their students because “every year, almost 2,000 students register with the CAC because when they come in, it is expected that it is not going to be only a classroom thing.”