To reduce the 33 percent unemployment rate in the country reported by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has launched a National Employability Benchmarking Programme at Nigerian universities. This program is being carried out in conjunction with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and various other local partners. Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, explained that this was done as part of a comprehensive effort to boost the country’s employability rates and to improve higher education with market demands significantly.
Echono, who made his remarks in Abuja at the meeting, stated that the International Finance Corporation (IFC) is utilizing its vitae employability technology in order to offer a diagnostic macro overview of how successfully tertiary institutions in Nigeria are actualizing employability best practices in their endeavor. According to him, they would also evaluate how tertiary institutions have been building a foundation for employability and perhaps aiding the establishment of a comprehensive strategy for sector intervention.
Phase one of the initiative will enhance higher institutions’ standards.
IFC Vitae is the first of its type survey-based diagnostic instrument that evaluates, analyze, structures, and promotes higher education institutions’ employability performance. Graduates will have better employment prospects due to the program’s insights into how to strengthen the ecosystem supporting their success in the job market after graduation. When it comes to devising an intervention to boost graduate employment outcomes, this IFC-led diagnosis is the first phase. The program will help raise the level of excellence at the country’s higher education institutions compared to global standards.
Furthermore, he added that creating a system that enables young graduates to enter the workforce with no or little delay is one of the organization’s primary objectives. As a first steps, the program compiled an overview of current employability practices to determine whether or not the existing regulatory policy structure facilitated or hindered achievement. The study’s primary goals were data collection, verification, and analysis from the participating Nigerian universities. Cognity Advisory, a regional development consultancy on account of TETFund coordinated this phase in conjunction with IFC’s global experts on employability.
IFC Vitae will assist institutions in creating graduates enhancing roadmap.
Leaders from Nigerian higher education institutions were brought together at the recent stakeholders’ meeting, giving them a forum to address the sector-level and institutional potential for improving practices promoting graduate employability, present and identify problems from the scheme, and highlight policy and process shortcomings. IFC Vitae has been made available to many higher education institutions in different nations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Latin America, assisting them in creating a roadmap for enhancing graduate outcomes and putting institutional goals for graduate employment into action.
According to Echono, Nigeria’s high youth unemployment rate is a major problem because it is a developing nation. He stated that according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the unemployment rate in Nigeria is 33.3% and that’s among Nigeria’s youth, unemployment stands at 42.5% and underemployment at 21.0%. In addition, the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index, which the bureau recently released, shows that 133 million Nigerians are poor and live below the poverty line, suggesting that 63% of individuals living in the country are multidimensionally poor.
The TETFund will unleash youth potential in the country.
With collaboration from the Federal Ministry of Education as well as the National Universities Commission (NUC), TETFund coordinates the National Employability Benchmarking Programme. The executive secretary of TETFund further explained that synchronizing its intervention actions to meet evolving needs and boosting the country’s educational provision towards developing an entrepreneurial culture is the effective way to unleash the vast youth possibilities, solve unemployment as well as various societal issues, and set the country economy on the growing path.
Related Link
TETFund: Website
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