If it is indeed appalling that graduates hardly secure paid employment, then the frequency at which the nation’s universities churn out half-baked students to add paints a bleak picture for the future of education in the country.
While statistics reveal that the population of students in tertiary institutions across the country is on the increase, there is however no corresponding surge in the creation of economically viable opportunities, a situation which is triggering an alarming rise in Nigeria’s unemployment and crime rates.
It is in realisation of the fact that developing human capital is a required for any country to be able to reach her goals that the current administration of Goodluck Jonathan through the subsidy reinvestment and employment scheme is out to ensure that graduates across the country are equipped with the needed skills that will make them employable.
The importance of the graduate internship scheme according to the vision of the government is to bring the desired connection between theory and practice in the approach to teaching and learning for current graduates which will stand them in good stead in the ever competitive world of employment.
Peter Papka, director community service women and youth employment declared that no country can actually attain development goal if there is not investment in building the capacity of her human resources.
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Papka, while speaking at the closing ceremony of a 3-day graduate internship scheme held in Lagos said the orientation programme was designed to ensure that graduates are prepared into working environment adding that organisation today wants to employ anybody particularly the young graduates without the required basic skills in working environment.
He further noted that in recognising that public private sectors are key drivers of the Nigeria economy and are future employers of the graduates, they would not want to employ anybody who does not have some basic requirement for employment.
According to him, we thought it appropriate that graduates that attend this internship scheme get prepared so that the skills and knowledge they acquire out of the training will help them to continue appropriately in those firms and organisation and therefore build themselves up to ensure that they prove that there is something in them as graduates. “The social safety net or social protection scheme which is the graduate internship scheme is to ensure that our graduates are not subjected to the challenges of unemployment”. He said.
He further noted that the scheme will impact on the national economy because with this graduate are going to be industry ready meaning that employers are going to find out that they need to spend less to get new graduates off the ground running.
Because they will be ready to add value from the first day they get into the job. The director pointed out the scheme is one of the many interventions by the federal government in trying to reintegrate Nigeria graduates into the real world. To give them an idea of what it is like to work after graduating from school.
“At the end of the day, Nigeria will benefit by having real human capital development out of the university as oppose to graduate that come out without any functional knowledge” he said.
