Over the weekend, the global community highlighted the importance of helping young people access the skills essential for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship on the occasion of this year’s World Youth Skills Day.
Established by the United Nations in 2014,
World Youth Skills Day is an annual observance held on July 15th, with focus on the significance of investing in the development of skills among young people.
In this report, Correspondent Omolara Omosanya examines the significance of the theme of this year’s observance; “Skilling teachers, trainers, and youth for a transformative future” in the present day Nigeria.
Unemployment Rate in Nigeria
According to one of the multinational consulting firms, KPMG, the unemployment rate in Nigeria will rise to 40.6per cent this year, due to the continuing inflow of job seekers into the job market.
Last year, the firm pegged the unemployment rate at 37.7per cent.
In the report titled ‘Global Economic Outlook’, slower-than-required economic growth, inability of the economy to absorb the 4-5 million new entrants into the Nigerian job market every year, limited investments by the private sector and low industrialisation were identified as reasons for the projected increase.
Over the years, the Federal and many State governments, including Lagos have been encouraging youths to acquire skills to boost their entrepreneurship opportunities through various projects and social intervention programmes.
With advancement in technology, the world of work as we know it, has been changing and having the right skill sets is now considered important, even more so than paper qualifications in some climes.
Reports indicate that a more skill-based recruitment method is now being adopted in the workforce in countries like the United Kingdom, USA and Canada.
However, Nigeria is yet to embrace this development as the dichotomy between skilled HND and Bsc holders is still much in place both in government and private Establishments.
The way forward
World Youth Skills Day encourages us all to reflect on whether our efforts are having an impact on overall youth empowerment and development.
A cross section of citizens who spoke with Radio Nigeria stressed that it is time for the Federal Government to prioritize competency above credentials and to also give more support to MSMEs.
They said “the situation in our country is for you to get yourself engaged in what you can do to make yourself relevant, what we are just saying to the government is this: lay the framework” “the world is moving, if you look at Germany for instance, one of the major thing that is driving their economy is technical and vocational skills and careers in TVET, for me, its important that we develop our skills as a people and as a nation to drive the economy” “there’s a lot of gap, tye challenge is, we have micro enterprises that a lot of Nigerians own and manage and they also employ some people, but they are being run by individuals with at best, a first leaving certificate, so government needs to also invest in other skills that owners of macro and micro enterprises canuse”
The Director General of the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association Mr Adewale Oyerinde also buttressed this.
“Let’s create a structured technical and vocational skills system that is aligned to our national development plan, so that when youths go through the system, their focus is not looking for jobs, they are more inclined towards entrepreneurship, they migrate to the MSMEs and SMEs and we create definitive support for that group, so that they can grow, if we have one thousand youths that employ two individuals, you have taken four thousand youths out of the job market” he advised.
Mr Oyerinde noted that a quality and inclusive education will increased employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for young men and women; while the professionalisation of youth work including upskilling of youth workers and allied professionals who facilitate the successful transition of young people from school to employment will ensure sustainable development.