Buhari expresses concerns over half-baked graduates

Hakeem Gbadamosi | Akure

 

President Muhammadu Buhari has described as worrisome the groming cases of many graduates of Nigerian universities who do not have proper knowledge of what they studied in school.

Buhari, expressed his concern during the 31st Convocation ceremony of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, on Saturday, calling on university lecturers to be more proactive in ensuring that graduates were better equipped to function meaningfully in their chosen fields.

He said many Nigerian graduates were being described as unemployable by employers of labour, adding that this was worrisome to his administration.

Buhari, who was represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC), Dr Suleiman Ramon-Yussuf, said the present administration considered education as the cornerstone of national development.

He explained that universities remain the pinnacle of education in the country, “being the engine room of knowledge generation and dissemination.”

“In today’s globalised knowledge economy, in which the wealth, strategic importance and ranking of any country in the comity of nations are determined largely by its knowledge economy index, my expectation is that our universities will use the instrumentality of their tripartite mandates of teaching, research and community engagement to launch Nigeria into an enviable position among nations of the world.

“In this regard, government expects Nigerian universities to produce graduates imbued with the requisite knowledge, competence, attitudes and skills to be active players in our quest for socio-economic and technological development.

“I expect universities to pay serious attention to the less than complimentary assessment of the graduates of our universities by employers of labour. Definitely, we cannot be comfortable when products of our citadels of learning are being described as unemployable, exhibiting lack of job-readiness and so on,” he said.

He noted that issues of graduate employability and skills were pertinent issues gaining traction nationally and internationally as well as being prominent on the front burners of discourse on higher education and the future of work.

While speaking, the vice chancellor of the university, Professor Joseph Fuwape, advised the graduating students to remain focused and diligent, in order to occupy the prime positions of leadership in the country.

Fuwape said no fewer than 153 students of the university graduated with first class out of 3,110 that were awarded first degree during the convocation.

He gave the breakdown of the graduating students thus: “Out of the 3,110 graduands, 153 made the first class category, while 1,514 bagged second class upper and 1,212 were in second class lower division.”

He added that about 216 students graduated with third class, while 15 graduated with pass grade.

Fuwape said the school of postgraduate studies produced 122 students who were awarded Ph.D., while 720 and 517 bagged Masters Degrees and Postgraduate Diplomas respectively.