A new report by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has indicated that Nigerian universities are lagging behind in global best practices in application of digital learning strategies, access to large multidisciplinary databases and digital course-reserves as well as the level of faculty digital skills.
The report, which centred on the National Employ ability Benchmarking Exercise, also showed that the aggregate average score of Nigerian benchmarked institutions across the five dimensions of employability is 2.3 out of 4.0, which IFC said was just above the average of all institutions benchmarked globally (2.2).
Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund, Sonny Echono, speaking in Abuja at the workshop organised to discuss the implementation of the recommendations the report submitted by the International Finance Corporation, said there was the need to strengthen entrepreneurship education and training in order to address the challenge of graduate unemployment in the country.
He disclosed that IFC assisted the Fund to conduct the employability benchmarking assessment programme for some select universities, reflecting representative samples across the country between September 2022 and January 2023.
According to him, the objective of undertaking the assessment of practices and processes supporting employability in higher institutions was to identify sector trends and provide comparative institutional findings on employability situations on a system level, saying this would provide a starting baseline to guide the development of specific interventions at both institutional and system level.
Echono said: “The IFC has deployed its Vitae Employability Tool through a programmatic sector level approach by engaging the institutions to develop a sector level language and data-driven understanding of employability.
“The stakeholders debriefing session held on 6th February 2023 on the early findings, provided the opportunity for IFC to obtain inputs from key stakeholders, enriched the final Report with far-reaching recommendations submitted to the Fund in April 2023,” he stated.
The TETFund boss noted that the final report of the exercise was forwarded to all Nigerian universities for necessary action.
He further explained that the report covered the five dimensions of employability viz: relevance of learning, governance and strategy, employer engagement, career services/guidance, and alumni management.
It also highlighted how student employability support at the universities aligns to good practices globally.
“The Report indicates that the aggregate average score of Nigerian benchmark institutions across the five dimensions of employability is 2.3 out of 4.0 which is just above the average of all institutions benchmarked globally (2.2).
“The report which also covers the assessment of the institutions’ Digital Learning Strategy shows that surveyed universities lagged behind global best practices in application of digital learning strategies, access to large multidisciplinary databases and digital course-reserves as well as the level of faculty digital skills.
“This obviously requires deliberate action on the part of all stakeholders to address our peculiar challenges,” Echono said.
He regretted that Nigeria being a developing economy is faced with the challenges of high unemployment, particularly youth unemployment which is at an all-time high in the country.
He also lamented that an increasing number of young Nigerian graduates from tertiary education institutions are being released into the labour market with a continuously shrinking absorptive capacity.
He blamed the situation on the structure of the economy which is largely import dependent, thereby, limiting the ability of the country to generate commensurable jobs due to low level of industrialization, adding that this has aggravated the unemployment situation in Nigeria.
He noted that the management of TETFund has accordingly tried to align its intervention activities to meet the changing needs, and strengthening education delivery towards fostering an entrepreneurship culture as some of the best ways for unleashing the enormous youth potential, address unemployment as well as other societal problems, and grow the economy.
“It is our belief that strengthening entrepreneurship education and training are crucial in this regard.
“As an Intervention Agency for tertiary education in Nigeria, TETFund is deliberately refocusing its intervention activities to support learning outcomes and employability of Nigerian tertiary education graduates,” Echono said.
He revealed at the event that the strategic and operational plan for refocusing TETFund entrepreneurship intervention for employability and innovation was approved by the Federal Ministry of Education in March 2023.
He added that the requirements and guidelines for accessing entrepreneurship development intervention of the Fund have been revised in line with the approved plan.
He disclosed that the Fund is in the process of establishing entrepreneurship and innovation hubs in the beneficiary institutions across the six geo-political zones of the country.
He said this would link them with industry with a view to enhancing entrepreneurship development, innovation and employability in line with contemporary global best practices.
According to him, these interventions would help promote the transformation of the beneficiary institutions into catalysts for knowledge creation and organizing the translation of knowledge into usable products and services for addressing societal problems.
All these efforts are geared towards facilitating the link between Research, Development, and Innovation with the processes of promoting and enhancing entrepreneurship development to ensure graduate employability for national development.
“The aim is to enable Nigerian tertiary institutions to serve as catalysts for regional and national economic development by unlocking the knowledge potential to solve critical societal challenges.
“The implementation support workshop for which we are all gathered here today, marks the commencement of the second phase of the employability programmes, focusing on the implementation of the recommendations from the benchmarking exercise and capacity building in the five employability dimensions which the IFC Vitae instrument examined,” he said.
Echono said the workshop was designed to focus on establishing a common understanding of the sector based on the IFC global framework with actionable opportunities on the findings and recommendations from the benchmarking exercise.
He added that it would also promote the adoption of best practices and lessons learned from around the world in improving the processes and operations in tertiary level education institutions in Nigeria, and thus provide improved employability services nationally.
Echono said the workshop would facilitate broader strategic conversations around employability that contextualizes the challenges across student journey from access to employability, with a focus on implementing quality frameworks which emphasizes key performance indicators, employability support services and stronger linkages with industry.
He said the quality of tertiary education and its contribution to national development remains the focus of TETFund’s interventions and issues central to employability and job-readiness of tertiary institutions graduates are particularly significant.
He revealed that the Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, SAN, had at his maiden briefing charged the Fund to focus on improving research infrastructure and entrepreneurship development to support employability for sustainable growth.
He said the Fund was committed to the implementation of the recommendations from the employability benchmarking exercise, saying the implementation would ultimately improve graduate employment, and thus reduce the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria.
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