Graduates’ unemployment: NBTE tasks varsities on dual qualification

The National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) has advocated the adoption of dual qualification mode where universities award BSc and National Skills Qualification degrees simultaneously to promote skilled labour for self-reliance.

Prof Idris Mohammed Bugaje, Executive Secretary of NBTE, gave the recommendation while presenting a keynote speech at a public lecture organised by Fortune Charitable Foundation in collaboration with the National Association of Muslim Engineering and Technical Students, ABU branch.

To achieve this, the NBTE boss said universities could redesign their SIWES programmes to make them more practical to enable students acquire necessary skills for self-employment.

He said polytechnics and Federal Colleges of Education must also roll out skills programmes in addition to the award of ND, NCE and HND, “Failure to adopt this will render the future of our graduates bleak.”

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Prof Bugaje, who lamented that the country was yet to get a functional education system leading to gross unemployment and underemployment, stressed that a paradigm shift to skills and entrepreneurship became imminent as skill had become the global labour currency for the 21st century economies.

The professor of chemistry engineering also frowned at skills mismatch prevalent among Nigerian graduates while industries complained of abundant skills gaps in construction, oil and gas.

He cited an example with the current AKK gas pipeline project, saying that it’s a game changer where youths must be trained to participate instead of engaging skilled labour from outside the country.

He further said, “The Mambilla Power Project is facing a dearth of skilled labour, and if care is not taken, the Chinese will take over the entire project execution.”

In his remarks, Prof Kabir Bala, Vice Chancellor of ABU, tasked relevant faculties and departments to key into the global trend by giving emphasis to skills and entrepreneurship in their curriculum designs.

Earlier, the convener, Prof Suleiman Abdullahi Karwai, said the initiative was aimed at empowering orphans and the less privileged to learn various skills and make them educationally sound for self-dependence.

Prof Karwai stated that so far over 60 youths had graduated, while 30 more had been recruited for the basic fully sponsored training by the organisation.