Severally, we have heard people say that Nigerian graduates are unemployable. It’s a very hard and difficult fact to believe. Have do we believe that after spending several years on education, we are then made to know that Nigerian graduates are unemployable? In most of the articles we have published on www.infoducation.com.ng, I keep reminding our readers that we will stop at nothing in our bid to make students successful. Thus, this article will be helpful in a bid to control some menace in our education system. These menace affects graduates later in life as they proceed in their chosen career. Thorough study has been made on this subject we have been able to come up with these major reasons why Nigerian graduates are unemployable.

1) Certificate without skills: The very first reason why Nigerian graduates are unemployable is because majority possess certificate without skill. Unfortunately, things are no longer the way they used to be. Previously, companies employ graduates because the total number of available graduates were limited. But now that almost everybody is now a graduate, the standard has increased. Everybody now has a certificate. Therefore, attention has shifted from your certificate to your sabificate. The question is no longer what you have on the paper you carry everywhere, but rather, what do you know (wetin you sabi)?

2) The incidence of examination malpractice: This is the second reason why Nigerian graduates are unemployable. Examination malpractice has so eaten the Nigerian education sector to the point that graduates only have their certificate and nothing more. They possess the certificate but unfortunately, they are not able to defend it. If we are to employ people who are unskilled with the hope that though they are unskilled, they should be knowledgeable, we will end up in disappointment. Examination malpractice gives students fake results. Students will go about with the result that is not theirs. Recently, I heard of a particular organization that said they cannot employ graduates from a particular institution. They arrived at this decision because it was observed that examination malpractice has eaten the school like a canker worm.

3) Many undergraduates spend their time studying courses they are not interested in: This is another reason why Nigerian graduates are unemployable. Unfortunately, many people go to higher institutions because their friends and mates are into it. Thus they accept admission into any department they are given admission. We see that in this case, the student involved will not pay attention to studies because that’s not what he wants. One of my cousins told me that he will still go back to school to study his dream course after spending about four years reading political science. Therefore, I recommend that if you must go to the higher institution, know what you want and pursue it.

4) Undergraduates are not taught how to write a résumé or successfully approach interviews: The problem might not be that these undergraduates know nothing at all to be employed. The problem might be their inability to prepare good and actionable curriculum vitae or resume. As a result of this, people now take CV writing as a job and receive payments. Meanwhile, this ought not to be so if those undergraduates were taught CV writing. Also, they are not prepared to approach interviews, therefore they perform woefully in these two aspect. With these, they surely will never be employed. Worse of all is that some cannot write application letter.

5) Many undergraduates study course with low demand, yet many applicants: This is another stunning point I will not fail to mention. We see in our time that many people are after accounting, electrical and mechanical engineering, banking and finance, public administration etc. We know too well that the number of people studying these courses are too numerous and as such all of them can never be employed. Yet, there are courses that when your study very well the job comes looking for you. These courses includes but not limited to medicine, cyber security, software engineering etc. With this, I recommend that you read my article titled, “things to consider before choosing a career”.

6) Outdated educational system: Truth be spoken, the current educational system obtainable in Nigeria is outdated. For example, in my 300 level, we did a course on software engineering. We were taught various operating systems and their features. Unfortunately, the operating systems we considered as example were; windows vista, windows 2000, windows xp, ME, and NT. Nothing was said about windows 10, 8, 8.1 and 7. Someone complained and the course lecturer said that was our course outline. Students are been stuffed with outdated knowledge, neglecting the most recent ones. With this, we see that most of the reasons why Nigerian graduates are unemployable could be traced to the school system.

Unrealistic demands: I have followed nairaland job notifications. One thing I discovered most times was that the requirements for such jobs are unrealistic. For example, you see a job opening in which one of the qualification is that you must have about 10 years or more working experience. Of course, this requirement cannot be met by fresh graduates.

9) Discriminatory requirements: Apart from setting unrealistic requirements, employers are discriminatory in their requirements. Think of a vacancy that the requirement is a minimum of second class upper division. Some even go as far and bad as putting their requirements having a first class honour. What happens to those with second class lower or even third class? These people all paid the same school fees. Unfortunately, knowledge and ability is no longer by what you graduated with. Most second class lower graduates will better defend their results than the second class upper graduates. So we see that this is another reason why Nigerian graduates are unemployable.

10) There are no jobs: Let me not spend the whole time pointing out these reasons without stating that there are no jobs in Nigeria. Majority of the available jobs are likened to a married woman still seeking for another husband. Well paid jobs are very few and are not available for the poor masses. You only get them if you know somebody who knows somebody that knows somebody. So how will a graduate get a job that does not exist?

To read the complete article, follow the link below
https://infoducation.com/why-nigerian-graduates-are-unemployable/2/

Very good and apt thread.

I very much concur

I don't mean to be pedantic, but the very word you used in this writeup was used wrongly.

chikachuks1:
Severally, we have heard people say that Nigerian graduates are unemployable. It’s a very hard and difficult fact to believe. Have do we believe that after spending several years on education, we are then made to know that Nigerian graduates are unemployable? In most of the articles we have published on www.infoducation.com.ng, I keep reminding our readers that we will stop at nothing in our bid to make students successful. Thus, this article will be helpful in a bid to control some menace in our education system. These menace affects graduates later in life as they proceed in their chosen career. Thorough study has been made on this subject we have been able to come up with these major reasons why Nigerian graduates are unemployable.

1) Certificate without skills: The very first reason why Nigerian graduates are unemployable is because majority possess certificate without skill. Unfortunately, things are no longer the way they used to be. Previously, companies employ graduates because the total number of available graduates were limited. But now that almost everybody is now a graduate, the standard has increased. Everybody now has a certificate. Therefore, attention has shifted from your certificate to your sabificate. The question is no longer what you have on the paper you carry everywhere, but rather, what do you know (wetin you sabi)?

2) The incidence of examination malpractice: This is the second reason why Nigerian graduates are unemployable. Examination malpractice has so eaten the Nigerian education sector to the point that graduates only have their certificate and nothing more. They possess the certificate but unfortunately, they are not able to defend it. If we are to employ people who are unskilled with the hope that though they are unskilled, they should be knowledgeable, we will end up in disappointment. Examination malpractice gives students fake results. Students will go about with the result that is not theirs. Recently, I heard of a particular organization that said they cannot employ graduates from a particular institution. They arrived at this decision because it was observed that examination malpractice has eaten the school like a canker worm.

3) Many undergraduates spend their time studying courses they are not interested in: This is another reason why Nigerian graduates are unemployable. Unfortunately, many people go to higher institutions because their friends and mates are into it. Thus they accept admission into any department they are given admission. We see that in this case, the student involved will not pay attention to studies because that’s not what he wants. One of my cousins told me that he will still go back to school to study his dream course after spending about four years reading political science. Therefore, I recommend that if you must go to the higher institution, know what you want and pursue it.

4) Undergraduates are not taught how to write a résumé or successfully approach interviews: The problem might not be that these undergraduates know nothing at all to be employed. The problem might be their inability to prepare good and actionable curriculum vitae or resume. As a result of this, people now take CV writing as a job and receive payments. Meanwhile, this ought not to be so if those undergraduates were taught CV writing. Also, they are not prepared to approach interviews, therefore they perform woefully in these two aspect. With these, they surely will never be employed. Worse of all is that some cannot write application letter.

5) Many undergraduates study course with low demand, yet many applicants: This is another stunning point I will not fail to mention. We see in our time that many people are after accounting, electrical and mechanical engineering, banking and finance, public administration etc. We know too well that the number of people studying these courses are too numerous and as such all of them can never be employed. Yet, there are courses that when your study very well the job comes looking for you. These courses includes but not limited to medicine, cyber security, software engineering etc. With this, I recommend that you read my article titled, “things to consider before choosing a career”.

6) Outdated educational system: Truth be spoken, the current educational system obtainable in Nigeria is outdated. For example, in my 300 level, we did a course on software engineering. We were taught various operating systems and their features. Unfortunately, the operating systems we considered as example were; windows vista, windows 2000, windows xp, ME, and NT. Nothing was said about windows 10, 8, 8.1 and 7. Someone complained and the course lecturer said that was our course outline. Students are been stuffed with outdated knowledge, neglecting the most recent ones. With this, we see that most of the reasons why Nigerian graduates are unemployable could be traced to the school system.

Unrealistic demands: I have followed nairaland job notifications. One thing I discovered most times was that the requirements for such jobs are unrealistic. For example, you see a job opening in which one of the qualification is that you must have about 10 years or more working experience. Of course, this requirement cannot be met by fresh graduates.

9) Discriminatory requirements: Apart from setting unrealistic requirements, employers are discriminatory in their requirements. Think of a vacancy that the requirement is a minimum of second class upper division. Some even go as far and bad as putting their requirements having a first class honour. What happens to those with second class lower or even third class? These people all paid the same school fees. Unfortunately, knowledge and ability is no longer by what you graduated with. Most second class lower graduates will better defend their results than the second class upper graduates. So we see that this is another reason why Nigerian graduates are unemployable.

10) There are no jobs: Let me not spend the whole time pointing out these reasons without stating that there are no jobs in Nigeria. Majority of the available jobs are likened to a married woman still seeking for another husband. Well paid jobs are very few and are not available for the poor masses. You only get them if you know somebody who knows somebody that knows somebody. So how will a graduate get a job that does not exist?

To read the complete article, follow the link below
https://infoducation.com.ng/why-nigerian-graduates-are-unemployable/2/

I actually agree with most (if not all) of what is written in this post. But I believe that the phrase "Nigerian graduates are unemployable" is an excuse used by recruiters and HR personnel to justify a faulty and inadequate method of recruitment. Everybody is good for something.

is that it?

archaic educational system don finish us

modelmike7:
Very good and apt thread.

thanks

Heemcelph:
I very much concur

nice one boss

ElRapido:
I don't mean to be pedantic, but the very word you used in this writeup was used wrongly.

thanks for your observations. please can you point out some si that I can change them

Kk