Worried by the consistent threat posed by youth unemployment in the country, and in a bid to address skills gap in Nigerian Industries, the National Universities Commission, (NUC), United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, (UNIDO) and Industrial Training Fund, (ITF) have commenced ‘Graduate tracer studies’, which is an initiative aimed at determining employability of Nigeria graduates in core areas of discipline, especially in science areas.
The tracer study is aimed at building robust inks between institutions, their graduates and the Labour Market. It also focuses on gathering necessary information required to improve the curriculum, teaching and research in the Universities” said Julius Okojie, the executive secretary of NUC at the commencement of the event on in Abuja.
Okojie who was represented by Chinedu Mafiana, deputy executive secretary 1 in NUC said: “The tracer studies would assist in ascertaining the effectiveness and relevance of the Nigeria Universities System curricula to the job functions of the graduates in their various places of work, as their professional development in the various fields”
Notably, the pilot graduate tracer study is focused on two important sub-sectors: the petro-chemical and steel industries, with selected 36 Universities in the country which is in line with the National Industrial Revolution Plan of the Federal government.
Speaking further on ITF’s commitment on the project Solesi Abiodun, deputy director of research and development in the agency said: “Before the Industrial Training Fund commenced the skills gap assessment programme with the United Nations International Development Programme,(UNIDO), Aliko Dangote informed us that there are lots of opportunities in his industries in the country, but that the required skills are mostly not possessed by Nigerian graduates, that was what led us to initiate the programme to close the skill gap in collaboration with UNIDO”
On the role of ITF, he said:”ITF is acting as an intermediary between the Universities and Industries, as regards job specification in line with what is expected to be taught students on attachment and in their programmes. We also work with institution based industries supervisors who feed us back with requisite information in order to fill the gap in University-industry relations”
He added that the need to close the skill gap in Nigerian Universities is further occasioned by the world Bank study in the year 2000 which revealed a disconnect between the University training and the needs of the labour market in the country.
Harrison Edeh
