Why Nigerian graduates are jobless

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Why Nigerian graduates are jobless - EDC director

Written by Tuesday, 17 July 2012

THE director, Entrepreneurship Development Centre of the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Mr O. O. Kukoyi, has attributed the inability of many Nigerian graduates to be gainfully employed to lack of acquisition of skills.

Kukoyi said this in his welcome address at the mini-graduation ceremony for vocational skills acquisition trainees organised for Higher National Diploma, HND II students of the institution.

Kukoyi noted with displeasure that the bulk of graduates from educational institutions in the country had remained unemployed because of lack of skills and the entrepreneurship wherewithal needed to transform them into successful entrepreneurs.

According to the director, “every year, polytechnics, colleges of education and universities produce millions of graduates who simply end up among the unemployed because their courses are incompatible with available jobs.”

He explained that new universities and polytechnics that sprang up on a daily basis in the country produced graduates who would further congest the labour market and further make the situation hopeless.

The guest lecturer at the ceremony, Reverend Koleade, J. D., in his address, called on the Federal Government to overhaul the curricula of Nigerian universities and polytechnics to make products fit for self-employment.

Reverend Koleade said that the curricula in most tertiary institutions were not only obsolete but could not assist government at all levels in solving the problem of uneployment.

He advised the graduates not to join the group of complainants which did not understand that God had plans for them, pointing out that they should remember the story of Jesus Christ on the need for one to use his talent profitably.

According to him, “all of you should bury the thoughts that government has not provided job opportunities for its citizenry.”