Stakeholders advocate graduates employability skills upgrade

The British Council, UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations recently organised a forum to encourage debates and discussions on collective solutions to address how employability skills can be developed in the Nigeria workforce.

The event, targeted at employers, educators, NGOs and others who are concerned about finding the right qualities in candidates when recruiting from the available workforce and intended for those who want to ensure that young Nigerians entering the workforce have the right skills and attributes to remain globally competitive, supporting economic growth and continuing to attract inward investment.

Research findings from a survey of circa 400 employers that have been undertaken during August 2014 was launched at this event, as various contributors gave inputs and case studies with a focus on collecting ideas from the floor and finding common areas of concern and synergies to ensure the right initiatives happen.

Speaking during the event, Connie Price, country director of the British Council, said she recognise that Nigeria as an emerging economy is one of the few countries in the world that will have a growing population of young people of employable age in abundant supply adding that these young people however need the right educational opportunities to enable them to make the maximum contribution to Nigeria’s economic growth and to take their place as citizens in a peaceful and prosperous Nigeria.

“With particular interest in new growth sectors e.g. the creative industries, and ensuring young people have the right skills to find meaningful opportunities and employment, British Council will leverage its global experience and access to UK expertise to support this initiative, while working in partnership with those already active in this field and those concerned to see real change,” Connie said.

Jo Beall, director, Education and Society, British Council, said that in many part of the world, lots of graduates are unskilled and there is an urgent need for tertiary education to be equipped with more skills.

According to Beall, research commissions are trying to understand, support and improve graduates from Ghana, Zambia, Nigeria and especially Kenya where it takes a graduate five years to get a job.

“Preliminary findings show that companies are recruiting graduates from tertiary institutions and they need professional communication, which the graduates do not possibly possess. The British Council wants to help upgrade their skills, so as to aid easy and sufficient job opportunities,” she explained.