Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation on Jan. 1 birthed 20, 210 babies according to a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report, trailing behind, India 69, 070 and China 44, 760 raising red flag about the quality of human capital development.
Much of the current data suggests the population growth spurt is not slowing down anytime soon. A United Nations’ report last year projected that, by 2050, Nigeria will become the world’s third largest country by population and one of the six nations with a population of over 300 million. However, educational and infrastructure development are not keeping pace and unemployment rate is increasing.
According to the National Bureau Statistics (NBS) the unemployment rate increased from 14.2 percent in Q4 2016 to 16.2 percent in Q2 2017 and 18.8 percent in Q3 2017. The number of people within the labour force who are unemployed or underemployed increased from 13.6 million and 17.7 million respectively in Q2 2017, to 15.9 million and 18.0 million in Q3 2017. Total unemployment and underemployment combined increased from 37.20 percent in the previous quarter to 40.0 percent in Q3 2017.
“Large population is an asset, look at the biggest economies of the world, they all have large population: China, India and the United States of America are good examples. What we need to worry about is the quality of our population, which boils down the level of investment in education, healthcare and human capital development” said Muda Yusuf, Director General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry in a phone interview.
Nigeria’s population has risen by 43 million in the last ten years; figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show. The figures captured in a report, “Demographic Statistics Report 2015” available on the website of the NBS, shows that the country’s population which stood at 140 million in 2006, had swelled to 183 million by 2015.
Africa’s most populous nation ranked 25 out 26 countries on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) human capital optimisation index for Africa, coming in only before Chad, a country that has been destabilised by civil unrest since 2008.
The World Economic Forum’s Human Capital Index, which measures the extent to which countries and economies optimise their human capital through education and skills development and its deployment throughout the life-course, finds that Sub-Saharan Africa, on average, currently only captures 55 percent of its full human capital potential, compared to a global average of 65 percent, ranging from 67 to 63 percent in Mauritius, Ghana and South Africa, to only 49 to 44 percent in Mali, Nigeria and Chad.
“Nigeria is ticking time bomb. We need an economic growth rate of 5 percent in order to generate three million jobs annually if we are to steer clear of dangers created by high unemployment rate,” said Obiageli Ezekwesili, Nigeria’s former minister of education and former Vice President of Africa at The World Bank Group, at South-Africa-Nigeria Chamber of Commerce event, in Lagos in the third quarter of 2017.
In a report titled ‘The Future of Jobs and Skills in Africa,’ the WEF highlighted four particular areas for strategic focus, which include: “ensuring the ‘future-readiness’ of curricula, especially through a focus on Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields; investing in digital fluency and ICT literacy skills; providing robust and respected technical and vocational education and training (TVET); and creating a culture of lifelong learning, including the provision of adult training and up skilling infrastructure.”
The greatest long-term benefits of ICT intensive jobs in Africa are likely not to be in the lower-skilled delivery of digital products or services but in digital design, creation and engineering.
To build a pipeline of future skills, Africa’s educators should design future-ready curricula that encourage critical thinking, creativity and emotional intelligence, as well as accelerate acquisition of digital and STEM skills to match the way people will work and collaborate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Focus on the quality of teachers is critical for this to happen.
STEPHEN ONYEKWELU
