By Usman Aliyu
Amidst the rising rate of unemployment in Nigeria, stakeholders have advocated a review of the educational curriculum, particularly at the tertiary level. They stressed that the curriculum must emphasise skills acquisition, to produce employable graduates.

The calibre of graduates produced by Nigerian tertiary institutions were blamed for the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria.

For instance, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), put the latest unemployment rate in the country at 33.3 per cent, the highest in the history of the country.

Similarly, the 2018 Graduate Switch Ranking by the World Economic Forum, placed Nigeria at 135 out of 140 countries, whose graduates lack the requisite skills, experience, and knowledge required by employing industries.

Speakers at the recent 19th convocation of Igbinedion University, Okada in Edo, were unanimous that Nigeria’s education curriculum needs to be reinvigorated to enable the country to produce employable and competitive graduates.

Former Managing Director, Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd., Babs Omotowa, who delivered the convocation lecture, stressed the need to adjust the current curriculum as there are evolving trends.

According to him, knowledge acquisition has been digitised and people could now easily ask anything from Google and get the answer.

“The future will see less traditional jobs, the current educational system that is geared towards producing job seekers needs to change so that children could graduate as creative entrepreneurs, with a business plan at hand.

“Universities have to evolve from teaching knowledge to teaching how to learn and apply knowledge.

“The value of education will not be the certificate or courses of study, but in the ability to think critically, select the right data, interrogate and extract new insight, make choices and take action to solve problems.
“If the capacities of our youths are built this way, Nigeria has the best opportunities ahead to navigate the impact of the global trend.

“The quality of education in our universities needs to become much better and globally competitive in teaching, cutting edge research, innovation, and international outlook.

“Our graduates will increasingly be competing with their peers across the world, and a situation where no Nigeria university is ranked in the world’s top 400 universities is simply not where we should be.

“In some countries, our graduates are now required to undertake a 2-year conversion course before they can be admitted to Masters programmes,” Omotowa said.

Another speaker, Prof. Sarah Agbor, said that it would be difficult to achieve the African Union’s agenda 2063 vision of prosperous Africa without sustained investments in quality education, science, and technology as well as youth development and empowerment.

Agbor, who is the Commissioner for Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation at the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, questioned the relevance in meeting today’s labour market needs of some of the courses offered by African universities.

“Many countries in Africa are confronting a crisis in youth employment, whereas, an education and skills development that takes cognisance of labour market needs is key in preparing young people for a productive life.

“Indeed, I understand that for the youths to be our driving force, for them to be champions of an integrated and vibrant Africa, they need to be competent and skilled to contribute to the realisation of Agenda 2063,” Agbor who delivered the second convocation lecture said.

She said since Africa accounts for up to 60 per cent of arable land, the continent must zero in on agriculture and agri-preneurship to capacitate the youth of the region as a response to the unemployment surge.

Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, who also spoke, corroborated that Nigerian universities should move from mere status symbols to instruments of national development through research.

Obaseki, represented by his deputy, Philip Shaibu, said the new role being advocated for the 21st century higher institutions of learning in Nigeria did not mean that universities should be politicised.

Rather, he said they should help in creating an enabling environment to play an advisory partnership role that involves research and information delivery.

“There is a missing link in the way and manner academic policies and courses are designed in African universities. We must faction out a way of formulating policies in tandem with African peculiarities.

“We must be able to access and identify political, economic, and social issues as well as the aspirations of the society to design our academic courses in line with local reality or challenges. Our institutions must desist from producing graduates without considering the societal needs.

“It must bequeath knowledge that can be deployed in solving African challenges rather than imitating the academic courses of foreign universities,” the governor said.

Former governor of Osun, Chief Bisi Akande, who spoke, also made a case for educational curriculum review, with emphasis on skills acquisition.

Akande, who was awarded an honorary Doctoral Degree in Political Science, said the discovery of writing and literacy had never in any way overtaken this traditional knowledge of ancient days.

He said that there had always been native informal or home traditional education from the pre-literature cultures which involved listening, observing, and imitating as people grow from birth even in the civilised countries of the world.

“That form of education comes with an apprenticeship for skills and craftsmanship for jobs to earn a living and, also, with the learning of the native morals on how to be a good and valuable member of the society.

“However, with the discovery of writings, knowledge became codified and has been better preserved from one generation to another. The riddle that remains, in that situation, however, is whether literacy alone is education?

“For a moment, let us set our minds to the beginning of what we now know as formal education. The Greek intellectual cradles remind us of Plato’s Academy in Athens. While we must not forget the growth of Alexandria’s library of the Egyptian civilisations, Confucius’s ancient philosophies from the state of Lu in China are also opposite.

“Historians would also enlighten us further about the fall of the Roman Empire. The Islamic sciences and mathematics revolution under the caliphates across the Middle East up to the Empire of Mali and the establishment of Cathedral schools by the Catholic Church followed.

“This boosted the idea of learning in schools all over Europe. We also must emphasise the new age of intellectual and scientific inquiry known as The Renaissance, which quickened the growth and spread of literature and education in the philosophy of the Religions, the Arts, and the Sciences across the globe!

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“The foray of the private sector and individuals is a welcome one that has gone a long way to bridge the infrastructural gap in the education sector.’’

Unarguably, the clamour for curriculum review is timely, as there is no better time to discuss value-driven education than now, because of the high unemployment rate in the country and disruption of the global economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (NAN Features