Millions of graduates in Nigeria are unemployed because they lack specific skills required for the current trend in the job market, the Federal Government said through Federal Ministry of Education Permanent Secretary Arc. Sonny Echono on Thursday.
Mr Echono delivered the remark in Abuja during a two-day National Conference on Technical and Vocational Education and Training. He claimed that the lack of necessary skills for the job market “has created a shortfall of the adequately skilled educated workforce which is one of the major constraints to the growth and development of our nation”.
The conference was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Development and organised by the Federal Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Skills Development for Youth Employment, SKYE programme. The event was held as part of the attempt to reposition the technical and vocational education and training through policy and legislative options.
“Most of the graduates produced in various universities of technology, polytechnics, colleges of education and technical colleges nationwide do not have specific skills required for the job market,” Mr Echono said
He also said that the current administration wishes to improve the skill acquisition of students in the country.
“Government at all level has been making frantic efforts to equip the youths by establishing technical colleges, polytechnics, mono-technics, Vocational Enterprise Institutions (VEIs) and Innovation Enterprise Institutions (IEIs) and Model Skills Training Centers (MSTC) for equipping youths/learners with technical and vocational skills through formal and non-formal channels across the states of the federation,” he added.
