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By Chika Mefor-Nwachukwu, Abuja
The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Arc. Sonny Echono had lamented that Nigerian universities lagged behind global best practices in application of digital learning strategies.
Echono who was speaking at the National Employability Programme Implementation Support Workshop in Abuja on Wednesday, stated that this was according to the Report of the National Employability Benchmarking Exercise submitted by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
He added that the report indicates that the aggregate average score of Nigerian benchmark institutions across five dimensions of employability is 2.3 out of 4.0 which was just above the average of all institutions benchmarked globally (2.2). “You will recall that IFC assisted the Fund to conduct the employability benchmarking assessment programme for some selected universities, reflecting representative samples across the country between September 2022 and January 2023.
“The objective of undertaking the assessment of practices and processes supporting employability in our higher institutions, was to identify sector trends and provide comparative institutional findings on employability situations on a system level, to provide a starting baseline to guide the development of specific interventions at both institutional and system level.
Echono lamented that Nigeria being a developing economy is faced with the challenges of high unemployment, and added that TETFund is deliberately refocusing its intervention activities to support learning outcomes and employability of Nigerian tertiary education graduates.
“I am pleased to report that the Strategic and Operational Plan for refocusing TETFund entrepreneurship intervention for employability and innovation was approved by the Federal Ministry of Education in March 2023. Consequently, the requirements and guidelines for accessing entrepreneurship development intervention of the Fund were revised in line with the approved Plan,” he said.
TETFund Boss also noted that the Fund is in the process of establishing entrepreneurship and innovation hubs in its beneficiary institutions across the six geo-political zones of the country, to link them with industry with a view to enhance entrepreneurship development, innovation and employability in line with contemporary global best practices.
“These interventions would help promote the transformation of our beneficiary institutions into catalysts for knowledge creation and organizing the translation of knowledge into usable products and services for addressing societal problems,” he said.
He added that the workshop marks the commencement of the second phase of the employability programmes, focusing on the implementation of the recommendations from the benchmarking exercise and capacity building in the five employability dimensions which the IFC Vitae instrument examined.
Echono said that the Fund will also organise capacity building programme for Career Unit Staff of public universities in order to empower the staff to develop capacity, and acquire the skills and knowledge to support students in developing capabilities to find and sustain meaningful employment.
“The programme would also equip career officers of the Institutions who do not currently have a career services unit with the basic skills to set up the Unit,” he said.
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