Nigeria is not equipping its largely youthful population with the necessary skills to enable them create value in the global economy, the latest Global Human Capital Report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) has shown.
This means Nigeria’s largely youthful population, 44 percent of whom are below 15 years, would be disadvantaged in an increasingly global world, where competition for human capital is no longer restricted to national boundaries.
“Despite a significant increase in net enrolment rates in recent years, it is estimated that about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school,” according to UNICEF, on its website. This means these children who are out of school are being denied a chance to compete in the future.
Nigeria is also estimated to have the world’s fourth largest population by 2050, with more than 400 million people living in the country. A low human capacity base means that this population will become a burden if not equipped with the right skills to compete globally, analysts warn.
“Education is the best economic policy in modern economies. Any country that has most of its workforce engaged in low skill, low income economic activity, reaps low productivity and cannot be competitive in today’s digital, globalised economy. This boils down to the quality, nature and delivery of education from the very basic level to the very top,” said Obiageli Ezekwesili, Nigeria’s former minister of education, at an education convention, in Lagos, early this year.
The WEF ranked 130 countries on their human capital development index and Nigeria ranked 114, among the lowest 20 globally, showing the country’s human capital is poorly prepared for competition in a fast changing global economy.
Nigeria, which is Africa’s largest economy, ranked lower than Rwanda, which was ranked 71, Ghana, which ranked 72, Cameroon (73), Mauritius (74) and South Africa (87). Only Ethiopia ranked worse than Nigeria at 127.
“The leaders of the Index are generally economies with a longstanding commitment to their people’s educational attainment and that have deployed a broad share of their workforce in skill-intensive occupations across a broad range of sectors,” the WEF states in the report. The report also notes that how countries develop their long-term capital can be an important determinant of their long-term success.
It also notes “Human capital is not defined solely through formal education and skilling. It can be enhanced over time, growing through use—and depreciating through lack of use—across people’s lifetimes.”
“Even with similar levels of upfront educational investment, on-the-job learning is critical for generating returns on the initial investment, as well as ensuring that people’s skills grow and appreciate in value over time,” the report states.
Jimi Tewe, CEO Inspiro Consulting, speaking to CNBC Africa on the ranking, noted that the focus of education should not just be to prepare youths for the skills of today but for the skills that will be needed tomorrow. Tewe advised that the government should take a look at the educational sectors and correct the anomalies that have made Nigeria rank this low.
In a different report titled ‘The Future of Jobs and Skills in Africa,’ the WEF highlighted four particular areas for strategic focus, which include: “ensuring the ‘future-readiness’ of curricula, especially through a focus on Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields; investing in digital fluency and ICT literacy skills; providing robust and respected technical and vocational education and training (TVET); and creating a culture of lifelong learning, including the provision of adult training and up skilling infrastructure,” the report stated.
A number of reasons account for Nigeria ranking low on the WEF Global Human Capital Report. The various levels of education suffer from significant challenges. At the tertiary level, there is the issue of infrastructure and where students can practice the theories they learn.
“Unfortunately, the industrial backbone has been very weak and the entire economy has been run as one big consumer market, dominated by imports from all over the world, especially China. As such, there are no outlets to practice these theories. Secondly, the institutions themselves need to be upgraded, both for the human ware as well as the soft and hardware, to enable the students study in a 21st Century” said Oyewusi Ibidapo Obe, professor of Systems Engineering, educational administrator and former vice chancellor of the University of Lagos, in an emailed note.
“We have started to have some “in-breeding” in our University System. This is anti-innovation and progress. The quality of lecturers in our institutions needs an urgent audit,” the 66-year-old university don added.
Education data report published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in February 2016 shows that the country had 62,406 public primary schools in 2014 with a total enrolment of 23 million children. These schools have 574,579 teachers, resulting in an average teacher to student ratio of 1 to 40 comparable to what obtains in most parts of Africa but twice higher than what obtains in Europe and America and even most parts of Asia.
The high student teacher ratio means that most students in these classes are not getting enough attention from teachers, since the classes are overcrowded. This poor attention is compounded by the fact that only 11 percent of teachers in public primary schools actually have an educational degree while 56 percent have the minimum National Certificate of Education (NCE). The remaining 33 percent of teachers have other undefined qualifications.
This shows that besides the fact that majority of Nigeria’s future generation are studying in overcrowded classrooms, many of the teachers imparting knowledge into them do not have the qualifications that will guarantee that they can get the best education on offer.
The Nigerian educational system has been plagued with poor funding over the years. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), currently on strike, is demanding for increased funding for the educational sector. But poor funding cuts across all segments of the educational sector from the primary to the tertiary levels.
“Many teachers in Nigeria today are far from kitted to prepare students for the knowledge economy. Beyond this general statement, are islands of exemplary teachers, mostly in private schools and in public schools in states with well-resourced classrooms and welfare scheme for teachers. These teachers produce students that make academic waves and are star employees of big corporations all over the world, especially in Europe and North America” said Peter Okebukola, former executive sectary of National Universities Commission in an emailed response.
STEPHEN ONYEKWELU
