Kwara State government has offered a 2019 graduate of first Islamic faith-based university in the country, AlHikmah University, Ilorin, Fatimah Jubril Musa, automatic employment.
Speaking during the institution’s ninth convocation at the weekend, registrar, Hajia Rasheedat Oladimeji, said that Miss Fatimah Musa, who bagged First Class in Economics, will resume work at the state Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS) after the completion of her mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.
The registrar also said that 26 of the 896 graduates bagged First Class degrees in various disciplines, adding that 824 bagged First degrees, 59 bagged postgraduate degrees while 13 bagged diploma certificates at the convocation.
Also speaking, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq said his administration is working hard to deepen access to qualitative education that would make the Kwara State child truly competitive in the 21st-century knowledge economy.
“This administration is committed to expanding access to qualitative education, making education functional and dynamic so that the knowledge and skills acquired would transform the entire society,” he said.
Represented by Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Hajia Sa’adatu Moddibo-Kawu, the governor listed some of his steps in the education sector to include the ongoing process to renovate 31 schools, rehabilitate the state library and make it conducive for 21st-century learning, as well as its reformist attempt to standardise teaching.
The governor charged the graduates to try to be relevant in the global economy through relevant skills.
ALSO READ: Bello begins commissioning of N500m World Bank CSDP projects in Kogi
“Let no one deceive you that a university degree is all that you need to succeed. I urge you to review the world as it is today and chart for yourself a path that leads to a greater future. I urge you to seek new skills that are required to survive what is now called the knowledge economy.
“I do not want you to be a part of the graduates that are irrelevant to the 21st-century economy. Also, I call on you to develop and imbibe the right attitude to duty wherever you find yourself,” he said.
In his speech, the vice-chancellor of the institution, Professor Taofeek Ibrahim, whose tenure will end in July 2020, expressed satisfaction over the growth that the university had witnessed in both academic programmes and physical development in the last four years.
Ibrahim, who also advised education stakeholders to encourage the early introduction of science education among primary school children, said their interest in science would have grown and sustained by the time they attained university age.
“We expect that 70 per cent admissions into our universities should be into Science, Technology and Engineering courses, yet, all that children are exposed to throughout their basic education for 6-9 years is ‘talks and stories’, without any exposure to basic science laboratories, tools and equipment,” he said.
He also called for the purposeful dedication of five per cent of nation’s oil and gas income to agricultural development annually, saying that the move would “make us overcome youth unemployment in the shortest time and enable us to attain the trajectory of emerging as one of the topmost 10 economies in the world by 2030”.
He called for the establishment of agriculture farm settlements with standard schools, health care and recreation facilities to attract Nigerian youths to agribusiness and agripreneurship.
Ibraheem appealed to the federal government to include private universities among beneficiaries of TETFund grants and projects.
and then