When Kemi Badenoch, leader of the British opposition, warned recently that too many young people are refusing jobs they consider “beneath them”, her comments were framed as a quarrel about entitlement and labour shortages. But the deeper provocation lay in her plan to cut funding for “poor value degrees” and strengthen apprenticeships – a move that reopened a global debate on the purpose, price and promise of university education in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. In Nigeria, the echoes landed with a disquieting clarity.
For decades, Nigerian families have anchored their hopes in formal education with near-religious conviction. A degree has functioned as the country’s most valued inheritance – insurance against misfortune; a pathway, however narrow, into security. Parents have sold property, depleted pensions and taken loans to send their children through institutions they believed could lift them into a more stable future. But for quite some time, the sobering reality is that a certificate no longer guarantees mobility.
“Instead, many institutions function as aspirational facades: imposing gates, polished brochures, and ceremonial mottos, and yet outdated syllabi, weak research output, and limited collaboration with industry. The result is a labour market saturated with degrees but starved of skills.”
Nigeria has attempted to meet the rising demand for higher education through rapid expansion. In 1999, fewer than 50 universities existed. Today, the National Universities Commission (NUC) lists 283, with private universities – virtually non-existent thirty years ago – now representing more than half of all institutions. This growth is staggering, but the capacity to produce high-quality teaching, research and innovation has not grown at the same pace. The proliferation of universities has increased enrolment, but not educational depth, institutional robustness or labour-market alignment.
This expansion unfolds at a moment of structural tension. Nigeria’s youth population is among the fastest-growing in the world. Every year, between 600,000 and 1 million young Nigerians graduate into an economy unable to absorb them. Youth unemployment and underemployment consistently hover above 50 per cent. Even employed graduates often find themselves in roles that neither utilise their education nor provide pathways to advancement. Meanwhile, global labour markets are transforming their own. A recent analysis of worldwide hiring trends found a 29 percent decline in entry-level roles over two years as AI, automation and new workflow models reduce demand for tasks traditionally performed by junior staff.
Artificial intelligence does not merely automate work but reorders the hierarchy of skills. AI can generate software prototypes, analyse vast datasets, draft presentations and produce research summaries with astonishing efficiency. Employers, once content with paper qualifications, now quietly ask a more discerning question: What can you do that cannot be automated? Research from the World Bank and the International Labour Organization notes that Nigerian graduates often lack the analytical, digital and problem-solving capacities required to thrive in a technology-centred labour market. In effect, AI is not devaluing the degree; it is exposing the fragility of degrees that are thin on rigour, disconnected from practice and detached from the demands of a knowledge economy.
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It is here that Badenoch’s remarks, however controversial in Britain, cast an uncomfortable light on Nigeria’s own educational structure. The crisis is not that graduates take service jobs – work that is honest, dignified and sometimes strategic. The crisis is that years of university education frequently yield no meaningful advantage in a labour market where competence, adaptability and creativity matter more than credentials. In a country where families invest disproportionately in education, the insult is not the job itself but the broken contract between schooling and opportunity.
The tragedy is that Nigeria’s university boom could have been a transformative national asset. A properly resourced, visionary higher education system could have supported breakthroughs in agriculture, renewable energy, manufacturing, public health and digital technology – sectors in which Nigeria has both urgent need and immense potential. Instead, many institutions function as aspirational facades: imposing gates, polished brochures, and ceremonial mottos, and yet outdated syllabi, weak research output, and limited collaboration with industry. The result is a labour market saturated with degrees but starved of skills.
Still, it would be intellectually unserious to declare that formal education has lost relevance. On the contrary, the age of AI demands more education, not less, but a fundamentally different kind. The university of the 21st century must be a place where students learn to question assumptions, interpret complexity, build interdisciplinary solutions and exercise the forms of reasoning that remain stubbornly human. No algorithm can replace intellectual judgement, ethical reasoning or the capacity to navigate ambiguity. These form the bedrock of a functional society and a competitive economy.
What is obsolete is not the idea of the university, but the analogue practices of many Nigerian universities. Lectures dictated verbatim, assessments that reward memorisation over inquiry, minimal digital engagement and outdated teaching methods cannot survive in a world where knowledge is dynamic and instantly accessible. Nigerian universities must confront the reality that their primary competition is no longer neighbouring institutions but global digital platforms offering micro-credentials, AI tutors and industry-grade skills training at a fraction of the cost.
The private sector has already begun adjusting to this new reality. Banks, fintechs and major telecoms companies increasingly operate internal academies to train graduates for roles where university curricula have proved deficient. Professional advancement in Nigeria is gradually detaching itself from traditional degrees and moving toward a portfolio of demonstrable competencies – many acquired outside the university system.
Government has signalled awareness of this shift. Policy frameworks introduced by the government in recent years aim to position Nigeria for AI-driven economic participation, including plans to integrate digital skills and AI literacy into the education sector. But implementation remains the Achilles heel. Without funding reform, governance restructuring and accountability mechanisms, such policies risk remaining aspirational rather than transformative. A university system that treats ICT as a peripheral elective cannot credibly prepare graduates for an economy mediated by artificial intelligence.
Reform requires more than curriculum revision; it demands structural redesign. Nigerian universities must evolve into hubs that integrate teaching, research, industry collaboration and entrepreneurship. They must embed AI literacy and digital competence across departments—not as specialisations but as foundational skills. Partnerships with industry should no longer be ceremonial but operational: co-designed courses, joint research labs, internship pipelines and faculty-industry exchanges. Work-integrated learning (apprenticeships and real-world projects) must become central rather than supplementary.
Equally important is the revaluation of technical and vocational education. Nigeria’s industrialisation has been hampered not only by a shortage of engineers and scientists but also by a scarcity of skilled technicians who can build, repair, maintain and innovate at the level required by a modern economy. Treating polytechnics as inferior institutions is an unsustainable posture. In most advanced economies, technical education is not a consolation prize but a cornerstone of national competitiveness.
Underneath all this lies an urgent cultural correction. Nigerian society must abandon its inherited ranking of work based on proximity to white-collar aesthetics. AI accelerates this reality by placing routine cognitive tasks (clerical work, basic analysis, and formulaic writing) at high risk of automation. The safest roles in the AI era are those that demand adaptability, contextual intelligence, emotional nuance and creative synthesis – traits Nigerians often possess intuitively but which must be sharpened through a modern and rigorous educational experience.
Thus, the fundamental question is not whether degrees still matter, but which educational models remain viable in a world where AI can replicate routine intelligence at scale. The degree as a status symbol is dying. The degree as a platform for lifelong learning, innovation and civic responsibility is not merely relevant; it is becoming indispensable. The Nigerian university that clings to ceremonial relevance while neglecting functional relevance will become a relic. The institution that rises to meet this epoch – adapting its pedagogy, strengthening its research, deepening its industry ties and integrating AI meaningfully – will define Nigeria’s competitive future.
Parents will continue to sacrifice for education because they understand, instinctively, that structured learning is still the most reliable starting point for their children. The responsibility now lies with the university system to ensure that what they supply is not a fragile credential but a durable capability. AI is not destroying the value of degrees; it is auditing it – line by line, discipline by discipline!
If Nigerian universities fail this audit, they will remain as impressive architectural monuments with diminishing relevance. But if they embrace the moment, they can help shape a generation equipped not only to survive the age of artificial intelligence but to lead it.
Dr Hani Okoroafor is a global informatics expert advising corporate boards across Europe, Africa, North America, and the Middle East. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of BusinessDay. Reactions are welcome at doctorhaniel@gmail.com.
