Prof. Emmanuel Ekuwem, Secretary to Akwa Ibom State Government, on Tuesday identified knowledge application as key to job creation.
Ekuwem made the assertion on Tuesday at the opening of the Second International Week of the University of Lagos.
The week had the theme: “Universities of the Future”.
According to Ekuwem, unemployment in the country is caused not necessarily by insufficiency of job opportunities, but insufficient availability of manpower capacity to move into workplaces on a plug-and-play basis.
He said that the recent data which identified Nigeria among countries with high number of out-of-school children was disturbing.
He said that unemployment in Nigeria should be urgently and adequately tackled.
Ekuwem said that universities must strive to do things differently in a bid to address unemployment among young people.
“Let me start by saying the theme of this year’s UNILAG International Week is really apt because that is a proactive response to the challenges we are facing today as a nation.
“I must commend UNILAG for this giant stride.
“What the Vice-Chancellor of this university, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, and his team are doing here today, for me, should be a national event, where we will rise as a nation to confront challenges headlong.
“Aside the high rate of out-of-school children, we are faced with statistics that reveals a huge percentage of people living below poverty line, which means that a good number of students, even in our institutions of higher learning, fall within that bracket.
“Therefore, the challenge may not really be that of insufficient job opportunities but that of insufficient manpower capacity to apply knowledge.
“This time, we should not just dwell on acquisition and transmission of knowledge but equally teach this younger generation how to apply knowledge,” he urged.
According to him, when knowledge is applied, jobs will be created.
“They go into places of work and then plug and play, as they say it in ICT.
“In other words, you have the competencies, go ahead and create jobs,” he said.
According to him, universities are known worldwide for creation of ideas, processing of the ideas, acquisition of knowledge and transmission of knowledge.
“It becomes institutionalised. It is an encompassment of institutionalisation and knowledge transmission.
“Then, there should be the third phase, and that is: knowledge utilisation or application.
“They say knowledge is power. This is so because it empowers those that process it; if it does not empower you, then knowledge has not become power to you,” he added.
The secretary said that syllabuses and curricula should be controlled and influenced by policies of governments in reaction to the socio-economic needs of the people.
He said that that Akwa Ibom had introduced entrepreneurial studies across the three tiers of education system.
Ekuwem advised universities to strive to remain relevant in nation-building.
The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, said universities should emphasise development and processing of skills of students.
“We need to let these students know that it is only skills that will make them stay relevant.
Gone are those days when once one finished from a university, one picked up a job.
“Now, what we doing and telling our children is that right from the day you enrol into the university, we will expose you more to skills acquisition and development.
“We were in a meeting recently with the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, where he pointed out that lecturers themselves must be on their toes.
“He said gone are the days when lecture notes prepared 10 to 15 years ago would still be relevant, while emphasising the need for constant upgrade by way of exposure to current trends that would make teaching and learning more practicable.”
Ogundipe said that the theme of the event was about students, about doing things differently and about exposing, developing and processing students’ skills.
He said that there was the need for students to see themselves as those who would take Nigeria to its desired heights.
According to him, the university is collaborating with young universities such as Borno State University and Akwa-Ibom State University as well as the government of Akwa Ibom in the areas of entrepreneurship and innovation.
Prof. Ayodele Atsenua, UNILAG’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development Services), said that plans were being made to develop programmes that would offer students more opportunities to create businesses.
“Before now, we asked students to set aside their entrepreneurial interests until they were through with their degree programmes. Now we are doing things differently.
“What we are doing is that we are encouraging our students, those who are already business inclined before the came to the university, by validating such interests.
“We will support them with their ideas, develop and protect them. The idea is that when businesses boom, they are already employers of labour and owners of businesses. They will no longer wait to be employed.
“We are deeply committed to this and will ensure that we sustain our university as the hub in Africa,” she added.
