Stakeholders have urged the federal government to urgently harmonise its skills development policies and align them with the demands of an AI-driven global economy.
They warned that Nigeria’s fragmented approach to education and workforce planning is jeopardising the country’s economic future.
Experts lamented that the nation’s disjointed systems, where ministries, agencies, and industries operate in isolation, are producing graduates ill-equipped for the modern workplace.
They cautioned that without coordinated planning, data-driven reforms, and sustained investment in vocational and technical education, millions of young Nigerians risk becoming unemployable within the next decade.
The warning came during a panel session titled “Skills-Driven Growth: Education for Economic Success” at the 2025 Nigerian Economic Summit held in Abuja on Monday, where experts from the education, development, and private sectors stressed the need for a comprehensive overhaul of Nigeria’s skills development framework to align learning outcomes with industry needs and promote inclusive economic growth.
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Modupe Adefeso-Olateju, Founder of The Education Partnership Centre, said Nigeria must move beyond certificate-based learning and focus on developing practical competencies that make young people employable.
She stressed that employability must be embedded from early childhood through tertiary education, with deliberate efforts to connect training to market realities.
“Employers today are not just looking for people with certificates but those who can do the job. That doesn’t come out of thin air; you train people to do jobs.
“We need to unify technology, teaching materials, and learning resources under a coherent capacity framework that delivers competence-based, industry-relevant skills”, Adefeso-Olateju said.
She identified commitment, competence, and cohesion as the three pillars needed to rebuild Nigeria’s skills ecosystem. Government commitment, she argued, must go beyond policy pronouncements and budget allocations to include actual releases, implementation, and accountability.
She urged closer alignment among federal, state, and local governments, the private sector, and civil society to create shared competency frameworks linking general, technical, and vocational education.
“We need to think deeply about employer co-investment. Skills development shouldn’t be a short-term response to unemployment but a strategic driver of productivity and innovation,” she added.
Adefeso-Olateju also underscored the need for interoperable data systems that connect the Ministries of Education, Labour, and other relevant agencies.
“We spend too much time collecting data that isn’t shared. In many countries, a citizen has one lifelong identifier. We need that level of coordination to make our systems efficient,” she said.
Adefeso-Olateju reiterated that Nigeria urgently needs an institutionalised learning and coordination system connecting ministries, industries, and communities.
She called for deliberate synergy between education and labour authorities to ensure that skills policies respond to the demands of the AI-driven global economy.
“We must pool evidence and data across ministries and communities. Education and labour ministries need to sit in one room and talk to each other.
“We can’t keep working in silos when the world has moved into the fifth industrial revolution,” she said.
She cited Nigeria’s failed 2014 attempt to introduce over 30 trade subjects in secondary schools as an example of poor planning.
“Schools were told to start teaching photography and agriculture without trained teachers or proper frameworks. Some even hired local photographers to teach. That’s how uncoordinated our planning was,” she recalled
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Adefeso-Olateju emphasised that Nigeria must adopt a long-term, coordinated strategy if it hopes to remain competitive in a technology-driven economy.
“If we do not build the capacity of our young people, robots will do the jobs. The robots are already here.
Education and skills training must no longer be treated as separate issues; they are deeply interconnected”, she warned.
Representing the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Britta Erckelens, who leads the Skills Development for Youth Employment (SKYE) programme, said the organisation’s work in Nigeria is anchored on partnerships that strengthen national capacity.
She explained that since 2018, GIZ has invested €50 million in collaborative development projects across several states.
Erckelens cited Ogun State as a model for skills reform, highlighting the establishment of a new job centre and the state’s recognition as an awarding body for technical qualifications.
“We’ve seen encouraging reforms, especially with the introduction of the Nigerian Skills Qualification Framework and the establishment of active Sector Skills Councils.
“The challenge remains sustaining industry engagement and ensuring long-term commitment”, she said.
Drawing lessons from Germany’s dual education model, Erckelens emphasised that early exposure to hands-on learning is vital.
She explained that German students participate in manual training and internships from primary school, made possible through close cooperation between schools and industries.
She outlined five key enablers for effective skills reform: strong public-private collaboration, integration of learning with work, nationally recognised competency standards, professional training for instructors, and institutionalised research supported by reliable data.
Erckelens stressed that evidence-based decision-making depends on accessible, harmonised data, a gap that Nigeria must urgently close
She highlighted the importance of gender equity, stressing that equal educational access for boys and girls must be maintained.
“As we correct historical imbalances in female education, we must also ensure boys are not left behind,” he said, urging Nigeria to integrate green and sustainable skills into its vocational training agenda
Bright Jaja, Founder and CEO of iCreate Africa, criticised the country’s piecemeal approach to skills training, describing many government empowerment schemes as superficial.
“We keep training people without understanding the real problem, which begins with data. What are Nigeria’s actual skills gaps? Who has that data?” he asked.
Jaja emphasised that skill-building should be treated as an investment, not a social welfare gesture.
He decried the poor state of technical schools and the lack of career progression pathways for artisans, which he said discourages young people from vocational careers.
“Our polytechnics train students with outdated tools. A graduate who learns with a hammer instead of a drill is not ready for modern work. Skills development must be intentional, well-funded, and supported by modern infrastructure,” he said.
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He added that poor social perception remains a major barrier, fueled by pop culture and media narratives that portray artisans as poor or uneducated.
To challenge this stereotype, he noted that his organisation launched the iCreate Skills Festival and later “The Builders Show,” a reality TV competition celebrating artisans.
“For the first time, people were taking pictures with bricklayers as they worked. It changed perceptions.
“The show has been premiered in Berlin, Botswana, Kenya, and Atlanta, and was recently copyrighted in the U.S. as the first of its kind globally”, Jaja said.
The role of the media also came under focus as Jaja revealed that his team produced a $700,000 skills-based reality TV show, sponsored by GIZ, Sterling Bank, and Bosch, to promote trades such as construction, but local stations declined to air it for branding reasons, even when offered free.
“We offered it to AIT and NTA, but they rejected it. Meanwhile, Big Brother Nigeria gets billions of views. Our show is now airing in Ghana and Togo, where governments saw the value,” he said.
Panellists agreed that without reliable data, sustained financing, and early exposure to career pathways, Nigeria’s youth would remain excluded from the workforce, while industries continue to face shortages of competent technicians.
Other participants who spoke during the session lamented the absence of key institutions such as the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and academia in crucial national dialogues on skills development.
A telecommunications executive pointed out that even when the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) hosted a forum on technical manpower, NBTE, the lead agency for the National Skills Qualification Framework, was not represented.
“It shows how disconnected government agencies are. The NCC is planning skills development, while NBTE is doing something similar in isolation.
“We must lock these actors in the same room and make them coordinate,” the participant said.
Ofeshe Peace, another participant, warned on the future of work, cautioning that AI is set to deepen unemployment unless urgent reforms are implemented.
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“In the next few years, even graduates will join the unemployed because AI is automating many jobs. Universities produce over 500,000 graduates annually, for companies already cutting human labour. If we don’t act now, the situation will worsen,” she said.
She lamented the absence of key policymakers at crucial forums, saying Nigeria’s problem is not a lack of ideas but a lack of political will.
“We have the people and ideas in this room to solve the problem. What we lack is commitment. The future of our children depends on what we do today,” she said.
Experts reiterated that without deliberate institutional cooperation and sustained investment, Nigeria risks being left behind in the global future of work.
“It begins with a sit-down. Let the ministries, academia, and private sector talk to each other. If we continue to work in silos, the future of work will simply leave Nigeria behind”, Adefeso-Olateju noted.
